


The Sleep of Reason

by Suzume



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Brothers, Crimes & Criminals, Film Noir, Gen, How reliable is this narrator?, Original Character(s), POV First Person, Pre-Canon, Slightly AU?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-22
Updated: 2012-03-22
Packaged: 2017-11-02 10:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/368056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know, I never planned on remaining a private detective forever.  I wanted to be a State Alchemist.  ...But I can see that's not what brought you.  My last case?  Irene Lovelace?  Well, if you that's the story you want to hear...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sleep of Reason

**Author's Note:**

> I also made a [soundtrack](http://8tracks.com/suzume/the-sleep-of-reason#mix_set_id=1292690) you can listen to, if you like that kind of thing.
> 
> Additionally, many thanks to seatbeltdrivein for being interested and just for being my friend.

             I remember the day I met Irene Lovelace like it was yesterday.  It was the first time I'd stopped by Shephard's place since getting my tattoos.  I'd taken the bandages off, but my palms were still a little tender.  I walked through the open door with my hands in my pockets.  I wasn't about to spoil a good reveal just by waving to the old eccentric right as I came in.

            "Oh, Kimblee," he greeted me with a sharp glance away from his current project.  He had to lift his head pretty high.  The brim of his cap obscured his vision.  "Back on the move?"  He used a tiny pair of pliers to bend a couple of fused wires out of his way.  That day he was working in his capacity as an electrician.

            As I wasn't about to concede defeat to such mundane matters as one (and certainly the least interesting) of Colin Shephard's three professions, I came closer, pulling over a chair and sitting down.  I balanced my white fedora on a corner of the table.

            Shephard had been something of a teacher to me in the past, but I can tell you now he wasn't exactly teacher of the year material.  I preferred to tell people I was self-taught.  It's true that I began, and continued, my studies without him.  In any case, while Shephard wasn't inspired as an alchemist, he was a half decent electrician, as well as a first rate tattoo artist.  He'd inked my arrays himself one rough and adrenaline-filled night not far in our past.  It made me think he'd be a little more eager to see them.

            "So, Kimblee...you're going through with that application process, right?  To become a State Alchemist?"  Shephard didn't look up when he spoke.  I followed his gnarled knuckles with my eyes.  He was working on a busted radio.

            "Yes..."

            "You won't be taking anymore jobs then?"  Shephard was off-handed as ever, but I knew what he meant.  It turned out that I'd come to South City from Fernberg just as ready to adapt as Shephard had.  I was an alchemist and an artist, and sometimes at his shop I was an amateur electrician.  What paid the rent though was my work as a private investigator.  Certification as a State Alchemist was going to spare me all that trouble and give me the time and opportunity to really perfect my craft.  I was young then.  I couldn't say I was an optimist, but I followed the news.  I had that subtle feeling that my time was coming.  Looking back, I would argue that I couldn't have been born into a better era.

            "It's still a few weeks 'til I take the test."  I wasn't worried about passing.  I just needed something to do in the interim.

            "So then it was okay to send one last client to see you?  I guess I'm going to have to tell people to stop bringing their jobs around here for you.  Anyway, it was a real snazzy dame, recently widowed."

            "You said, "send" her to me?"  I fixed Shephard with a stern "haven't we gone over this before?" look.

            "Yeah.  I gave her your card and scratched your regular address on the back."  The lazy man finally tipped his head up and looked, really looked, at me.  His upper lip trembled like a palsied hand as he took the full impact of my gaze across the brow.  I was glad he wasn't missing out on this expression of my feelings.

            "You couldn't let her stay here?  Or tell her to give me a call?  Shephard, you _know_ I don't like clients coming to my apartment."

            "She stayed here a while...but she kept pacing around, toying with the instruments...  I couldn't get any work done!  Not between all the fidgeting and that piercing green stare she gave me!"  Shephard's mustache twitched as he met and held my eyes for a few more seconds.  "It's a lot like your stare, actually, Kimblee.  Just sultrier."

            "Fine," I snapped, no longer in the mood to play about with the old man.  I ignored my purpose in coming by the shop, uncrossing my legs and picking up my hat, hand over the crown.

            Shephard saw his handiwork crisscrossing my palms and sort of half-smiled half-smirked.  "It looks good.  How's that doing for ya?"

            I turned, my quiet irritation unabated, and placed my hat on my head as I walked out the open door.  "Looks great, but I haven't taken it for a test run yet."

            Outside the sky had only clouded and darkened further since I first left the apartment.  I had chosen not to bring an umbrella.  I hoped I'd chosen right.  The last thing my suit needed was a dappling of dirty city rain.  It was only a couple of blocks back to my apartment.  I walked them at a clipped pace.  No one approached me, but the neighbors all knew me in a general way.  My standard look of all white made me recognizable.  Among the smaller circle who actually knew something of me, I was regarded as slightly unsettling.  Why, you ask?  That's not for me to say.  They were the ones perceiving me as such.

            The rickety stairs, ill tended, and therefore rusted, clanked with my every step.  I lived on the top floor- the third floor.  It afforded a decent view of South City, which was a boon to both myself and my brother.  When afflicted with creative block we would stare out at the smoke-grayed trees and plain-shingled roofs.  I had wasted a lot of time like that.  I'd solved a couple of problems that way too.

            The door was closed.  Before I'd fully unlocked the door and entered, I could already hear my brother's voice reacting to my presence.  "Oh, Solf!  Good!"  He sounded agitated.  I only took a split second to look into his dark, strained eyes before my attention was drawn to the far more unusual sight in my residence.  A woman.  A little black hat, draped with a bit of black netting, perched on the side of her head of blond, wavy hair.  Though it isn't saying much, she was taller than my brother.  From her black heels and hose to her stylish coat and gloves she was the very fashion magazine picture of a chic widow.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I could imagine the assistants at Shephard's joint whistling, "Look at those gams!"  It was Irene Lovelace.

            "Solf," she echoed my brother, and her voice was just as silky and lustrous as I had imagined it.  I liked it so much I let her say that.  I nodded an acknowledgment.

            "'Solf J. Kimblee.  Private Eye,'" she repeated herself, showing me my business card.  I recognized Shephard's spiky scrawl bleeding through the back where he had decided the telephone number printed on the front wasn't good enough and added my address.  "I'm Irene Lovelace."

            I doffed my hat.  We shook hands.  It was the first time I had shaken hands since getting the tattoos.  It was worth noting that I saw her black-rimmed eyes dart to the indigo array, but she didn't flinch or ask.  Clearly, Irene Lovelace knew something of alchemy.

            "My pleasure," I said, hanging my hat on one of the handy hooks by the door.  I was trying to play it cool.  I think I was succeeding decently well.  It was a delicate balancing act.  I had never told my brother about my detective work.  When we had come to live in South City that had been part of the main framework we established to live together.  "If you don't want to hear about it, don't ask about it."  So Lon, with his careful fraternal suspicions, never asked me about my work.  He was probably glad.  If I paid the bills he had more time to devote to his music.

            "Mr. Kimblee, you came with such a stellar recommendation, I'm sure you'll be able to help me," Irene began.  She reached up and adjusted her hat ever so slightly.  She didn't do it for no reason.  "It's- it's just..."

            "Why don't you have a seat, Ms. Lovelace?"  My brother was clueless enough to interfere in the middle of her combination explanation and plea, pulling out a chair for her at our modest dining table.

            Irene moved gracefully, adapting to the flow of the situation with ease.  She had a certain self-assuredness that I liked.  Lon and I sat down with her.  It wasn't any of Lon's business and I wished he wouldn't get involved in it, but I wasn't about to say anything like that in front of a potential client.  It was unprofessional and wouldn't go over well.  Calm and control were selling points.  "So, what's your story?" I delved straight to the heart of the matter.

            "I don't know if you've read about it, Mr. Kimblee, but my husband, Roger, was found murdered just three days ago.  I came here straight from the funeral."

            "Major Lovelace?" I raised an eyebrow.  I had read about it.  I'd heard it spoken of too.

            "That's him.  ... _Was_ him."  She was solemn, but didn't strike me as sad.  Not in an average way at least.

            "The Cold-Slicing Alchemist," I added.  Apparently he'd had a half-decent career, at least as far as research went.  He never advanced in rank.  He probably never took the field.  I could perfectly picture the photographs run by the paper the day before.  Major (Doctor) Roger Lovelace- balding, clean-shaven, a bit dumpy, with a face as round as a peach.  A standard military file photo.  A personal memento of sorts, snapped alongside an old friend- the Elastic Alchemist.  A casual family portrait- looking relaxed, sitting under a tree with her- yes, it had been, without a doubt, Irene Lovelace, smiling, in a summer dress.  "The circumstances of his death were somewhat unusual, correct?"

            "As usual as pigs flying or the sun shining at midnight."  Irene reached back and fluffed her downy hair.  She was much younger than Major Lovelace.  It didn't take any special sort of genius to see how the major's murder might have thrown the shadow of suspicion over his widow.  From there it was no leap to see why Irene would want to hire an investigator of her own to sort this out before she could be implicated.

            "The paper reported it as a poisoning."  I wanted to see what she would say.

            "They can't release all the details, but it's not as if that's a lie.  Other than the MPs, only the criminal knows what happened."  Irene tapped the tabletop with one finger to emphasize her words.

            "You want me to find out who killed your husband."

            "Yes.  And to clear my name, of course.  I have my suspicions regarding what sort of person did it."  After getting the basic gist of things off her chest, she looked tired.  She had had a long three days.

            "Lon, will you make the lady a cup of coffee?"

            "Y-yeah."  He caught his foot around the leg of the chair and nearly tripped, but recovered at the last second, moving on into the kitchen to put on a kettle for his task.  Irene trailed Lon's movements with a discrete flicker of her eyes.  I couldn't get a good read on what she thought of him.  I generally went to some pains to keep my less savory contacts unaware of him.  It was in both our best interests.  It had been six months before Shephard knew I had a brother.  It helped that he was relatively content to be reclusive.  He had been a shy child.

            "You're going to have to tell me everything you know about your husband's death," I told her.  I had a feeling there was more to this case than met the eye and I wasn't about to get things started out on the wrong foot by allowing this sassy dame to pull all the strings.

            Irene batted her eyelashes, the very picture of feminine sincerity.  "Well...there are two things that come to mind, Mr. Kimblee...or can I call you 'Solf?'"

            I liked the way she said my name, that's for sure.  "Solf" never sounded so good.  But there needed to be some sort of boundaries observed in every working relationship.  "I'd prefer "Kimblee," Ms. Lovelace."  I was smiling by this point, and I couldn't remember when that had started.

            A small point of explanation is in order.  Allow me to digress.  My brother's full name is Lon T. Kimblee.  Generally, he's called "Lon."  I, on the other hand, prefer to be called "Kimblee."  Occasionally, this leads to slight misunderstandings.  Letters addressed to a "Mr. Kimblee" are the main puzzle.  Thank you for bearing with me.

            "Mr. Kimblee," Irene agreed.  Her eyes were smoldering.  She held the silence (excepting the innocuous background noise of Lon in the kitchen area) magnificently, like a glass slipper, fitting it to the sole of the space between us.  Still, I held myself in reserve.  She spoke first.  "I have reason to believe," she leaned a little closer, "That my husband had contacts with the underworld.  Through a certain Giancarlo Gatling."

            This was pretty funny in my book.  Gatling was my man in the underworld.  Sporting his shaved head year round, Gatling would meet up with me outside the racetrack to exchange information on a semi-regular basis.  He and his brother were on the up and coming side of the gang.  More than once he'd come to me to hand over information about a man on the outs.  If I handled things, that kept their inner politics simpler.

            I used my well-trained sense of restraint to keep away the smirk that would link me to Gatling.  "And the other thing?" I prompted, hoping to be through the preliminaries before Lon rejoined us.

            "All evidence points to the murderer being an alchemist."

            Ah, the magic word.  For me, on the verge of my state certification, more than ever.  Having heard that one item, there was suddenly no power on earth that could keep me from taking the job and solving the case completely, ripping down any and all façades, to square off with the truth within the truth.  "He's as good as caught."  This would be my last task as a private eye.  I would give Irene Lovelace the most artful performance of my career.

 

*****

 

            I think the main reason no argument ensued regarding my secret investigative work was because things were already slightly chilled between Lon and I.  The tattoos were part of it- I could see his inner tremors and concerns rising to the surface as he contemplated his naive part in their creation- and the approaching date of my state certification test was the other.  Held up to these twin outrages, perhaps the identity of the mystery profession that took me away with a smile and a nod at all times of day or night just didn't hold up as a subject of complaint.

            It was not until much later that I considered the possibility that Lon had already guessed my secret.  Perhaps I underestimated him.  I still have problems giving people credit of that nature.

            "That was quite a surprise," was all Lon could manage around the rim of his coffee mug.

            I said nothing and thought about the nature of my duties as an older brother.  That was the last remaining role in my life I hadn't personally chosen.

            "You should take an umbrella," Lon suggested later, as I readied myself to go.  I was tucking my notebook and pencil into an inside pocket of my coat and considering the advantages and disadvantages of covering my tattoos with a dressy pair of gloves.  He came over and handed me his.

            I opted against the gloves.  It was like the joy of visibly carrying a gun.  I wanted anyone who cared to see that I was armed, dangerous, ready for action.  Irene already knew that, of course.  "Why yours?"  My eyes scooted over to see my own umbrella (white, of course) leaning innocuously in its place.  "Is there something wrong with my umbrella that I don't know about?"

            "No."  Lon was acting strangely, but I knew he was no liar.  "I just have this feeling that it might be good for you to take mine.  It's not as if I need it.  I don't expect I'll be going out today."

            "No groceries to pick up?" I poked lightheartedly.

            "Only eggs, bread, and a bar of soap, but I thought you might pick them up on the way back in."

            I made up my mind to accept the umbrella regardless of the reason.  Would its generic blackness cause me to blend into the crowds, or would the contrast with my suit only lead to my sticking out all the more?  "Thank you.  I'll be off then."  I hooked the handle of the umbrella over my arm and put on my hat.  With Lon apprehensively watching my back, I went out in the gloomy pseudo-night of the overcast afternoon.

 

            There was only one thing I wanted to avoid in my preliminary investigations, and that was Ms. Lovelace herself.  If my ways of doing and discovering things came out, it could get a little awkward.  It was also better if the police didn't see me as in her pocket, which would lead to my receiving more neutral information.  Irene may have enlisted me for the job, but now that I was on the case, the only thing I was wedded to was the truth.

            I cut through the side streets, avoiding the bright-eyed faces of the middle class neighbor children, so furiously naively about the truths of this world, and made my way straight into the murky depths of Giancarlo's gin joint, poorly lit and full of smoke.  I don't like cigarettes.  They're dirty, stain your teeth, and leave a bad scent in your hair and clothes, but I tolerated them when I had to.  The typical gray cloud of visible breath escaped out the door as I opened it.  It made for a nice entrance.

            Giancarlo was in his usual booth seat with his current fling hanging onto his arm, a flowing boa of black feathers draped around her arms and neck.  Whenever it brushed against his face, he looked like he was going to sneeze.  He had started work on a mustache since I'd last seen him.  He was about ten years older than me, give or take.  "Mr. Kimblee!  Good afternoon!" he called when he saw me, waving me over to sit beside him.

            I wasn't actually a regular there, but I was known well enough that no one worried at my proximity to their potentially less-than-legal dealings.  There was gambling on the stage where a live band would be playing later that night.  I could never let my brother know there was music there or he'd have been trying to book his own gig there without even recognizing the seedy character of the place.  I came dancing here sometimes.

            "Kimblee, you remember Lola, right?" Giancarlo grinned and gave his girl a squeeze.  "Of course."  I have a photographic memory.  I never forget anyone I meet while I'm working.  Lola giggled.  She seemed to remember me pretty well.  I'd given her a couple of turns on the dance floor the day we met before Giancarlo's jealous tendencies kicked in and he made her sit down (compared to him, I was too good a dancer).

            "You never come without a reason, Kimblee- well, maybe sometimes you come at night without much of one- but, hey, talk to me.  What'd you come for?"

            "You knew Major Roger Lovelace?  I want to talk to you about his murder- see if you know anything...  If he'd gotten on the wrong side of any mobsters or anything..."

            "Lovelace?  Yeah, I knew him."  Giancarlo rattled off the words like a gun, bang bang bang.  "A funny guy.  He was a surgeon, actually, did you know?  He used his alchemic abilities in the operating theater.  He could make a man so cold his heart would nearly stop, then after the operation get him warmed up and he'd be like new!  I met him pretty coincidentally.  Anyway, I introduced him to the big boss and they hit it off, so he did some work for us.  He even worked on me this one time- took a bullet out of my thigh.  ...He wasn't half bad- for a State Alchemist."

            "For a State Alchemist?" I laughed, "So if I become one we can't be pals anymore, Mr. Gatling?"

            "They won't let a screwball like you into the military, Kimblee.  They may want dogs, but they aren't looking for rabid ones."

            "I don't see anything wrong with him," Lola remarked, primping a bit, not because she needed to, but, I suppose, because she liked to.

            I didn't let Giancarlo's attitude faze me, though I did get him to back down on the whole State Alchemist thing.  I had good enough control of my emotions to manage that.  Giancarlo didn't realize quite yet that he had been privileged to see not only the gentleman, but also the heretic in me.  I made explosions for him down by the run-down factories of the industrial district to cover up the executions of his rivals.  The "bomb artist," they called me (it was another circle that passed word about of the "mad bomber").  It was a moniker I liked.

            "So, you don't know then what sort of enemies he had?"

            Giancarlo waved a pudgy hand lazily through the air, "No, doin', Kimblee.  He was cool with us.  As cool as his second name."  The Cold-Cutting Alchemist.  It was already wondering, yearning, to know what name the president would bestow upon me.  I've always had an interest in names.  Maybe with a name like mine a guy can't help it.

            "And it couldn't be a rival gang," Giancarlo continued.  "We've practically done in all our serious competition in South City.  It's giving the higher-ups a good opportunity to lay a stronger foundation in Central and elsewhere.  Lovelace was a cautious type too.  Kind of like you.  I don't think anyone knew he was moonlighting for us.  Maybe not even that wife of his."

            "You met his wife?"  Now that would be an interesting tidbit of information.

            "No, no, I only saw her, knew of her.  I wondered if she was some kinda gold digger.  He was livin' pretty fat and happy off his research funds, I gather."  Lola giggled at this talk of gold diggers.  I'd have liked her even better if she were smart enough to find this a sort of ironic topic in her presence.

            The thing was- if the research funds were the point, Lovelace was worth more alive than dead.  He'd been a State Alchemist for nearly three decades, always managing to produce good progress in his research and keep his certification.  Without passing the annual evaluation, the research funding would dry up.  Alternatively, there was the possibility that Lovelace had a lot of money saved up.  He could've made money through side jobs, like his work for the mob, or perhaps he conducted his research on the cheap and squeezed cenz that way.  Maybe Irene had hired a hit on him.  She had known how to find me- she could probably find an alchemist hit man.

            It didn't have to be Irene though.  It was important not to come to any conclusions at this point (after all, I wasn't a cop).  "Anything else?"

            "I can't think of anything now, but I've got your number.  If I hear anything, I'll drop you a line."  We shook hands and gave one another a farewell nod.  I turned tail and made to leave the gin join.  It was too early for a drink (for me, but apparently not for Giancarlo).

            "He's sort of unique, doncha think?" I could hear Lola remark as I breezed past the bar.

            "Huh?  Kimblee's look, you mean?" Giancarlo's leathery voice reached out to me over the general clatter and noise of his establishment, "Never seen him differently myself.  I think if you set his house on fire he'd come out to meet the firefighters in his white lid and glad rags.  He's more than a little crazy I'd wager, but you need some kind of soup job done, he's your man, and he can make a clean sneak like no one else I know.  It's good to have friends in various places, so if he gets certified, the more power to him, I say.  Course, he's headed straight to the loony bin someday, assuming the slammer doesn't nab him first.  I don't care how good he thinks he is.  It's not duck soup to keep that kind of crazy under wraps."

            I shook my head in disapproval.  Where were his manners?  Saying such things before I'd even fully departed...  But I had other things to do.  I'd let it go for now, but without a doubt, I would remember it.

 

            On the way to my next stop before asking for a more detailed interview with Irene, it started to rain.  My own umbrella was white; Lon's black one worked just fine.  I kept glancing up at it.  Its gloomy color caught my attention again and again as it flickered in and out of the corner of my eye.  The rain spattered down on South City, beating a meaningless tattoo over streets, cars, buildings, and people alike.  Smacking, thap thap thap, on the umbrella, I began to imagine the sound of raindrops changing to the military rat-a-tat of drums.  A car rushed past, splashing up a dirty spray of brown-gray water and I jumped away to avoid the mess, scowling at the fleeing vehicle.  Another breech of manners so quickly- and at that speed, maybe a breech of the law too.  The city driving I had observed often left something to be desired.

            "Hey, gumshoe, looking for a ride?" a familiar driver asked as I rounded the corner.  A hack.  An Ishvalan, I think.  Qarash.  He knew enough of my habits to know I wouldn't turn him down then, standing in the gradually increasing rain.

            "The corner of Maple and First," I directed by way of assent as I clambered into the car.  I appraised Qarash's easy-going red eyes in the rear view mirror.  I didn't know a whole lot of Ishvalans then.  There hadn't been any in my hometown.

            "Did something happen to your umbrella, Mr. Kimblee?"  The windshield wipers flicked back and forth like twin metronomes across the streaked and soaking glass of the windshield.

            So someone had noticed.  "Not as far as I know.  My brother made me take his."

            Ishvalans value family bonds, so they say.  Qarash's smile jumped from his eyes to his face.  "That's your brother?  I had wondered.  He shares your snazzy clothes."

            "That's it?" I teased.  People always said that about us because they couldn't think of anything else alike about us.  I was sure there had to be something.  We were very close.

            "Um, ah-" This took Qarash by surprise, as it did most people.  "Well, uh, if your brother wore his hair long, would it look-"

            I raised a hand, palm up, and shook my head.  "It's okay, Qarash.  I was just teasing.  You don't have to do that."

            "Ha ha ha, right," the taxi driver laughed nervously.  He pulled up and stopped at my destination.  It wasn't far, but I'd given him trouble, so I slightly overpaid.  Best to get on well with your neighbors and blend in with your community.  I struggled with my umbrella, got out, and tipped my hat.  Qarash waved as he drove off.

            The rain hadn't let up at all.

 

            The coroner's office was dimly lit and quiet, the same as it had been the last time I visited.  Sam kept the lights low whenever he wasn't working on a body.  I don't know why he did it.  I think his explanation was something about not wanting to blow a fuse and have the freezers short out, which, if it was true, was a decent reason.  However, I had a feeling it was just a personal whim- something he enjoyed doing because he was in control of his own workspace.

            We'd had a bit of a laugh about it the first time it came up in conversation.  I'd told him that it was because he wanted to ruin his eyes.  Sam had replied that it was his own business if he did.  It seemed like he had gotten the best of me then, until I came up with the rejoinder that he would not look quite so suave and handsome with glasses.  It wouldn't have been a good comeback if Sam hadn't agreed.  There were no hard feelings.  We had similar interests, so we were sort of friends.

            "Sam," I called into the shadowy gray interior.  "It's too early to be out for lunch, Sam!"

            "What, are you kidding me?" a jovial voice chuckled back at me from parts unseen.  "I'm here!  And I'm not eating lunch yet!  I can't spoil my appetite- I have a lunch date, Kimblee!"

            I walked further into the open space in front of the reception counter.  Sometimes there was a police secretary working the desk.  At the moment, it seemed that the only one present was Sam.  I would've said that the South City Police Department was horribly understaffed, but the fact of the matter was that it was only the off-base offices that were like this.  The MPs tended to keep their operations centered around the military hubs.  If Sam really needed a hand, other technicians were just a phone call away.

            "Do you think I look like I've put on some weight?" Sam asked self-consciously, looking down at himself as he made his way out of the examining room.  His white lab coat billowed out around the plain work ensemble enlivened only by the short scarf tied around his neck.

            "You look fine, Sam."  He was vain, but I didn't care about that.  "So it's merely a coffee break," I smirked, doffing my hat and using it to gesture toward the mug in Sam's hand.

            "The coffee pot's calling the kettle black, eh, Kimblee?  You're not the one who should be teasing me over that."  He took a sip and then set the cup down carefully on the counter just in front of a stack of heavy medical dictionaries and other reference books.  "Did you come by just to hassle me?  That's not like you.  What case did you come here to ask about?"

            It was when we got down to business that Sam and I really became friends.  We were both consummate professionals.  There was nothing so satisfying as really being in love with your work.  "Roger Lovelace," I volunteered succinctly.  I glanced down at the floor, glad to see that I hadn't tracked much rain into the office.  The mat at the door was a bit too worn down to make much of an impact on any dirty feet that passed over it.

            "That's the one I would've guessed."  Sam nodded, more to himself than to me, I thought.  He was turning over some information regarding the case in his mind.  It was probably something that related to why he had known this case was the type I would be working on.

            "The funeral was held this morning, or so I hear, but you handled the body, right?"

            "Indeed!  Come back into my office and I'll pull the file for you," Sam waved me around the counter.  I tiptoed my way around the counter and through the stacks of files, boxed or hastily piled up, that crowded the floor and filled out the glass-covered shelves like a million paper leaves on the tree of the coroner's office.  It didn't strike me as a particularly secure way to store reports that might contain such crucial evidence.  The cases in the back were locked, but without anyone to guard them, it would be easy to break into them.  Of course, I supposed the state knew what it was doing.  Sam had showed me particularly vital evidence before concerning the Bake Hill murders.  It had been kept in a double-locked safe.

            "Or, uh, maybe I won't even have to pull it!" Sam broke through my reverie.  He lifted up one thin folder and took another out from beneath it, waving it triumphantly in the air over his head.  The file was distinctly labeled, "Lovelace, Roger."

            "Convenient," I agreed.  It made sense that if the case was not yet closed that it would still be on Sam's mind- which generally meant in his hand or on his desk.

            "Do you want to know why I thought you would come around asking about this case, Kimblee?  It's because it's really _very_ fascinating."  Sam pushed several other files over into one stack on the corner of his desk and opened the folder in question.  Sheet by sheet, he began to lay out its contents- a mix of photographs documenting the injuries the victim had sustained, notes and diagrams made in Sam's fluid hand commenting on them, and various pages of speculation and analysis regarding the cause of death.

            "Is that a compliment?  I don't come around asking about boring deaths?"

            "If they were boring to you, you wouldn't.  ...That's what I think at least.  You like a challenge."

            The photos showing the outside of the body did not depict anything special.  Major Lovelace's skin looked pale, possibly a bit yellow, but since he supposedly was poisoned, this was what one would expect.  He had suffered no particular external wounds except an ordinary bruise to his forearm.  I tapped my finger on the brownish spot and Sam offered the explanation he had been given.  "The wife said he hit it getting out of bed a few days earlier."

            "Ah, 'the wife,'" I nodded.  I couldn't be sure until this point that Sam had gotten a chance to speak with her.  "Did she say anything that could cast some light on the investigation?"

            "Oh, not really.  It was the same old, "I don't know who could've wanted to do this to Roger," "It isn't fair," "Will you be able to catch the culprit?" stuff.  I heard from Harding that the only lead she brought in was something about an ex-colleague who might've been jealous thinking that Lovelace'd gotten all the credit."

            "Harding?  Is that who's in charge of this case?"  Harding and I had a history.  I suppose most of the local law enforcement officials and I had a history, but what Harold F. Archer-Harding and I shared was something- "special" is not the proper word for it, although I'm tempted to offer that as my adjective of choice- different, shall we say.  You might know him as the lead investigator on the Mad Bomber case.  (Don't you remember it?  The serial bombing of several industrial district sites in South City over the course of the summer of 1906?  Locally, it was a big story.  Admittedly, not as big a story as the Bake Hill murders, but, you might recall, crime-wise, that was a busy summer.)  In any case, the story concerning Harding and myself is too long a tangent to digress onto here.  Ask me about it later.

            "Yeah.  I think he wanted it, actually.  He and I both knew Lovelace a bit through the military establishment.  You know he was a surgeon, right?  And a medical alchemist?"

            "It was in the paper, Sam.  The Cold-Cutting Alchemist.  That's all basic stuff."

            "You can't have forgotten, Kimblee- you never forget anything.  I don't read obituaries.  I examine dead bodies all day.  I might as well be writing the obituaries."

            "I didn't forget- I just thought you'd guess as much."  I didn't intend to offend him.  I shuffled the photographs around on the desk, moving from ones that would not help me to those that might provide some actual clues.  "But you did know him, so I imagine you might be able to tell me something the paper did not.  What do you think about the ex-colleague story, Sam?  Do you give it any credence?"

            "What?  The classic, "Did he have any enemies?" question?"  Sam was smiling like usual.  I could tell he was trying not to laugh.  I remembered what he'd told me before about this kind of thing: "I love it when you get all 'hard-boiled!'"  I had no idea what he was talking about.  I simply did my work the way I best knew how.  Sam probably read too much detective fiction.

            There was no reason to address his query.  It was practically a rhetorical question.  I kept my expression schooled and pleasant, waiting to see what kind of answer he would give me.

            "Yeah, the ex-colleague theory is worth following up on at least.  Lovelace and this other guy, Gorman, used to run a lab together.  I think there was a dispute about the freezing during surgery idea.  When they were up for re-certification back about six years ago, Lovelace kept his certification no problem, but Gorman got dumped by the state.  He's still freelance now, as far as I can tell.  _And_ , there's a little more to it, according to Mrs. Lovelace."

            Suddenly, with a timeline longer than the days leading up to the murder to keep track of, I found a number of other questions and possible leads arose in my mind.  First among them was something simple enough to ask Irene when I met with her later: how long had the Lovelaces been married?

            "I overheard her telling Harding that, apparently, after Gorman lost his certification, he came to Lovelace asking for some kind of financial support until he could get back on his feet.  He'd thrown a lot of money into a big stunt for his state exam and once it backfired, he was really hurting.  Well, Lovelace didn't help him when he asked."

            "So, even if there was no theft of ideas involved, this Gorman fellow had a potential reason to be upset with Lovelace anyway," I concluded from Sam's story.  There was one thing about this that bothered me though.  "If it was six years ago that Gorman was cut off by his friend, why did he wait all that time to poison Lovelace?  I can't imagine that all that time he couldn't find any opportunity..."

            "Yeah, yeah, Harding said the same thing.  I thought so too.  Of course, who's to say he didn't try other things over the course of those years?  Or he didn't try to poison Lovelace and fail?  I'm not sure there's any way to find out some of those things unless Gorman is willing to talk."

            "And to tell the truth."  That was an important part of the equation some of the players in this mystery might have been forgetting.  I was willing to bet that Harding never let it slip his mind though.  Not Irene either.  As for myself, well, don't I always tell the truth?  ...Am I telling this story as honestly and properly as I possibly can despite my all too human biases?  I suppose you will have to be the judge of that, my friend.  Trusting or choosing not to trust- it's a choice you must make for yourself.  Isn't that the nature of life?

            "That too."  Sam's smile slipped off his face, like a woman's mascara melting down her cheeks in the rain.  "If the truth that Gorman tells him isn't the kind of truth Harding wants or is willing to hear, there might be some extra difficulties to be had."

            "The man's a rabid dog.  He sinks his teeth into something and you'd have to put him down to make him let go."  Lingering recollections of the Mad Bomber case drifted through my mind.

            "I think he prefers to be thought of as a wolf," Sam regained a touch of his smile.

            "Don't we all," I chuckled.  Sam didn't like hearing it as much as I liked saying it, but when was I ever one to tiptoe around the truth?  “Did I miss the identification of the poison in here?’

            “It wasn’t anything exotic- yes, I know that you alchemists usually like to show off by doing your best work, but when it comes to murder, there are certainly advantages in utilizing the mundane.  It was one of those ‘naturally occurring in miniscule portions’ sort of things.  Just there was far too high a concentration of it to justify any natural explanation.”  The medical examiner sighed then shrugged.  After a moment, another line of thought passed through Sam’s mind.  "You've met Aaron Forrest, right?  Mr. Forensic Alchemy?"

            "Once," I reminded him.

            "I thought so.  Well, if he were here, maybe I'd have a more detailed report for you to look at, but he signed on for some sort of project with the Crystal Alchemist- I think it's related to the civil war- so we're out one good man these days."

            “That’s too bad, but I’m sure he went where he was most needed.  And,” I continued, “I’m sure that you’ll do just fine without him.”

            “Heh heh, well, I guess I’ve gotta go now, Kimblee, but I always appreciate your vote of confidence.”  Sam tossed his gloves into the wastebasket, walked me to the door, and locked up, heading around the other side of the building to pick up his car.  He gave me one last wave as he drove away to meet his date.  On some occasions he provided me with a convenient ride, but I was going to have to content myself with being the one-man backer of the South City cab system that day.

            I was able to wave down the first cab that passed, but this time Qarash didn't answer my hail.  It was a female cabby: long ponytail, neat suit.  When I told her Gorman's address, she asked to see the page I had written it on.  "Oh.  Hmm," the tip of her tongue stuck out of the corner of her mouth.  "Yeah, I know where this is.  It's not exactly a great area, if you don't mind my saying so."

            "Say what you like," I chuckled, taking back the page, "I've got a suspect out there."  I assume she took me for a plain-clothes policeman because she didn't comment further on the matter.  As we passed through the heart of the city out to one of its outlying arms, full of collapsing manors and over-grown ivy, I could see what the woman meant.  This had been a nice neighborhood once.  Perhaps about twenty years prior.

            "Here you are, sir."

            "Thank you," I counted out her fee.  Ian Gorman's home was a crumbling castle.  He could afford to live there, but, I gathered, not to keep the place up.  The black wrought iron fence opened into a lop-sided gate that squeaked as I entered.  What could the yard tell me about the man?  Well, hopefully he didn't look as disheveled as the lawn did.  Didn't Gorman believe in the lawnmower?  The area he had to tend wasn't so large as to be a significant task.  Was he lazy?  Cheap?  There were dandelions and thistles sprouting amidst the thick and bushy tufts.  I pictured him then- unkempt, needing a shave.  The inside of the house was probably in less-than-optimum condition as well.

            The doorknocker was shaped like a lion.  I announced myself with a firm rap.  There was a creaking inside.  I waited.  The man who met me was slightly stooped, with paling brown hair.  He was just about exactly what I had expected.

            "Hello?  Eh, if you're here from the insurance company, I'm not renewing that stinking policy."

            "No, no," I smiled.  I had never been taken for an insurance salesman before.  "Mr. Gorman, I'm a private detective.  I trust you've heard about Major Lovelace's unfortunate passing?  I'm here to ask you a few questions about him, if I may."

            "Private detective?"  Gorman did not appear too happy to have me on his doorstep in this profession either.  "You're not here about that fiasco with the Smiths?"

            "No.  I don't even know who they are.  Like I said," I offered him the combined threat and surrender of my open palms, "I am here concerning the Lovelace murder.  May I have a moment of your time now, or should I come back later?"

            "You can come in now, alchemist," Gorman relented.  He drooped a little more as the fight went out of him.  I noticed that his nose was slightly crooked- probably from a break in the past.  Since parting ways with Roger Lovelace, the landscape of their homes (I didn’t need to see the Lovelace residence to bring to bear my knowledge of the neighborhood) and faces was enough to tell me that they had lived very different sorts of lives.

            Gorman's home was also about what I had expected from the outside.  The lighting was poor, the shelves were dusty, and the only way the decor could be described charitably was as "antique."  While I found Gorman's face, fashion, and accommodations were lacking, I could not criticize his hospitality.  He offered me a seat in his kitchen, where a large portion of what light the dreary day could be obliged to provide showed off more than a fair share of dust and bread crumbs spread across the tile.  The part of me that prizes cleanliness recoiled.  Thinking more objectively, I wondered about the quality of Gorman's eyesight.  Poor vision would explain away a higher degree of disorder.

            "I suppose it wouldn't have been possible for you and the policeman to come at once," Gorman sighed with the gentle, raspy murmur of one who had experience a lifetime of mild disappointments.  Without prompting he put on the teakettle, reminding me of my mother, although they were not of quite the same generation (there is nothing else about my mother relevant to this story, but I like to talk about her, so if you are interested, remember to ask me later on).

            "Yes," I smiled, "I don't think the police would allow that."  Such a scenario would've barely troubled me, but I imagine that, even if I were kept mute and did not participate in the interrogation, my mere presence would've given someone like Detective Harding apoplexy (his debt to me regarding Bake Hill not withstanding).

            "I don't like them," Gorman went on more seriously (I was about to learn that Ian Gorman was a tireless talker).  "The local police, that is.  A bunch of standard service rejects- that's what they are.  Oh, and some fat former service men."  (I was familiar with one Horace Grieb among the South City police and it was not difficult to imagine the later description referred specifically to him.)  "You, though, you're an alchemist."  He turned away from the stove to face me again.  I tried to imagine him thirty years younger.  Could he have ever been a handsome man?  "Have you ever made a try at state certification?"

            "No," I answered cautiously.  I needed Gorman's cooperation in my investigation and he already struck me as an opinionated person.

            "Don't," he growled.  I felt justified in my brevity.  "The state'll take your best years, your best work, but as soon as you can't jump over their bar- just one failure to please, mind you- that's it, you're out on the street!  Unless you're looking for a full-on military career, young man, rather a mangy cur in the alleys than a chained-up dog of the state!"

            His tirade had no effect on me, but it was, nevertheless, an interesting point of view.

            "It occurs to me that I didn't ask your name."

            I had been waiting for that inquiry myself.  "I'm Solf J. Kimblee, Mr. Gorman."  I like my name and have never tired of delivering it in full (with the extravagance of a middle name, surely you'll agree that a simple initial will suffice?).

            "Kimblee?" Gorman scratched his chin.  The teakettle was beginning to whistle.  "That's a funny name.  Where're you from?"

            "Fernburg.  Somewhat northeast of here.  You've never heard of the Kimblee Textile Company."  It was a statement, not a question.  The only ones outside of Fernburg who knew the name were in the clothing industry themselves (I had once met a dry cleaner who expressed excessive admiration of my father's business policies).  "Of course, that's neither here nor there.  I'm the one here to speak with you, Mr. Gorman."

            "Yes, yes," he mumbled robotically, pouring two cups of tea and joining me as the table with the offer of milk or sugar (I opted for both).  "...Don't you need pencil and paper to take some notes on me?"  Gorman finally split the silence between sips with another round of suspicion.

            "I've found that writing things down during the questioning unnecessarily distracts and worries innocent people.  Afterward, I will make up some notation back at my office.  Rest assured, I have an excellent memory."  There was no easy way to prove this, so he was going to have to take my word for it.

            "Oh, fine then.  Start."

            "Ian Gorman, you are an alchemist previously in the employ of the state?"

            "That's correct."

            "And partner of the late Roger Lovelace in his experimental surgical procedures?"

            "Mmm-hmm."

            "Are you also a surgeon?"  My cursory information had failed to deliver in this regard.  Roger Lovelace had not been some dilettante alchemist, but a licensed physician using his other talents to enlarge the boundaries of his practice.

            "An anesthesiologist.  Although my certification in that field has lapsed too.  But," he stressed the particulars of his condition, "That's because I'm retired."

            How amusing.  "Should I address you as 'Dr. Gorman' then?" I inquired, ever wedded to the cause of good manners.

            "There's no need.  ...Doctor or not, I'm never going to get any more respect from anyone..."

            "About Major? - Dr. Lovelace then.  I understand the two of you experienced something of a falling out six years ago after you failed your re-certification exam."

            "You can't expect there to have been anything good about it.  We were friends for twenty years and he claimed more than his fair share of credit."

            "You went to see Dr. Lovelace to borrow some money and he turned you down," I pushed, "After all you had done for him.  Twenty years of friendship wasn't worth a cenz."

            "Turned down by Roger?  What?" Gorman scratched his head.  "Yeah, I had money problems after I lost my state certification.  I've still got money problems.  You think I'd be wearing this patched up rag if I had two cenz to rub together?"

            I had no reason yet to actually suspect him of anything, but already I disliked Ian Gorman.  He was unkempt and obnoxious, about as far as you'd expect from my type of man, but one can't chose the sort of characters one will have to deal with on the job.  "Yes, certainly," I drawled, without much interest.  I wanted him to hurry up and get on with telling me the story- specifically it's salient points- but I couldn't nag or rush him overmuch.  That was the problem with this type.  If I hassled him, he would only make things more difficult for me.  Well, I can be patient, so I was.

            "When I showed up on the stoop of that house, I didn't even get to talk to Roger.  That bombshell of a wife of his answered the door and kicked me off the property all on her own.  Didn't even give Roger his chance to decide what _he'd_ like to do to me."

            "Is that so?"  Apparently I didn't have to be as patient as I had expected.  "I gather you don't much care for Mrs. Lovelace."

            "Don't care for her?" Gorman burst out before I had a chance to finish.  Of course, with this being a sore subject for him, I didn't really need to be allowed to carry on.  He would go on too say plenty about Irene Lovelace without my prompting.  "That woman is a crafty little vixen, Mister- uh, what did you say your name was?"

            "Kimblee."

            "Yes, Mister Kimblee.  Well, you've gotten yourself into a real pickle letting a lady like that hire you on.  She's going to take you for a ride, I can already tell you that.  I don't know how she'll do it- if she'll stiff you your fees or if she'll make you fall head over heels and then break your heart just for the heck of it or settle somewhere halfway between and tie you to a bed and take your wallet- and with a suit like that, probably your suit too- but she'll do it."

            I watched silently as Gorman rolled off this litany of accusations, astounded not by his claims but by the myriad of nervous tics that marked his speech.  I'm no psychologist, but I'd wager the man was a wreck then and still is now, unless he's already been found dead in a gutter (it was difficult to gauge his age on account of his ragged condition, but if he was close in age to Major Lovelace he was already somewhat advanced through middle age at the time of my investigation).

            When Gorman waited for a response to continue, I would toss him a nod of encouragement.  It didn't require many.  He was the kind of man all too willing to share the details of the supposed death by a thousand cuts that was his life.  With lengthy tangents devoted to his health problems, his ex-wife, and several other lousy colleagues he had weathered during his time as a State Alchemist, Gorman rambled on for a good half hour about the nature and duration of his acquaintances with the Lovelaces.

            Most of it was useless, but part of being a detective is being able to pick the useful parts out of the rubble (both literal and figurative) and put them to good use.  The gist of what I had learned, however, was that Ian Gorman was a cranky old man with a firm dislike for Irene Lovelace, and some hurt feelings over his falling out with Dr. Lovelace.  He didn’t even seem to know as much about the murder as I had from merely reading the newspaper.  If he’d been interested in murdering one of the Lovelaces, I had a feeling it would’ve been the one who’d survived.  …He remained a source, but a questionable one at best (Irene would’ve hated to have him called as a character witness).

            I thanked Gorman excessively for his help, as I could see that he was the sort of man who would appreciate that.  He looked my card over several times and promised he would be in touch if he suddenly “remembered” anything that might be useful, but I doubted I would have further need of him unless something particularly groundbreaking was unearthed.

            “I’ll walk you to the door,” he offered and rose, creaking, like a sun-bleached skeleton from a horror story.

            However, he took me further, through the yard and to the gate, where an old friend (of sorts) was sniffing around in front of the fence, his bloodhound-like nature evident, taking notes.  “Oh,” Gorman let out a miniscule gasp, “It’s him again.”  I believe it was directed at the uniform, not the specific individual wearing it.  I ignored his mild distress and opened the gate.  His reaction was interesting.  It might prove more telling than anything he had just said.  I have to admit watching the man snooping around before us was interesting to me.  Maybe I should call it “professional curiosity.”

            One thing even I can say about Harold F. Archer-Harding is that he was not a stupid man.  Because of our previous acquaintance, I was not surprised to find that he had found and spoken with Gorman before me.  I was, however, surprised that he had come back.

            "Mr. Kimblee," he greeted me with a cool nod.  He did not appear to find my presence at Gorman's residence unusual.  Whether this was a compliment of sorts or an early hint of suspicion, I can't say.

            "Detective Harding," I replied, "Good afternoon."

            Gorman's shifty orbs danced around his eye sockets in a hasty foxtrot.  He looked like a caged animal searching for an escape even while aware of how sturdy the bars were.  Harding's presence was far more disturbing to Gorman (what reason did he have to fear the legitimate authorities?  Whatever that problem was with the Smiths?) than it was to me.  “Mr. Gorman, I have some follow-up questions for you.  If you’re not busy…”

            “I was going just now, Detective,” I volunteered, offering my empty hands in a conciliatory gesture.

            Harding got what he wanted.  Gorman was probably not so lucky.  There wasn’t going to be any random cab traffic down this street.  Thinking over the things I had seen and heard, I stuck my hands into my pockets and headed away, aiming for the quickest path out of their line of sight.  It wouldn’t be polite to allow them to hear the tune that I was suddenly dying to hum.  I held my song in until I was absolutely sure I was far enough away not to be heard.  I didn’t have any particularly strong leads, but I was enjoying myself.  When it was done, I was certain I would miss the work, but working as a State Alchemist was bound to be able to provide its own thrills.

 

            The lunch hour was so long gone at this point that it was probably for the best to forget about stopping for a salad or sandwich.  I found my way to the best library in the city and perused records instead until my curiosity had been satisfied on a few basic points.  After that, there was no point in holding off on speaking to Irene any longer.  Honestly, it was at least in part because I wanted to so badly that I’d held off.  Things you have to wait for- or work for- are more satisfying.

            I placed the phone call from outside the library.  Irene picked up immediately following the first ring, meeting me with all the beautifully worded pleasantries I had already come to expect of her.  We could have talked of nothing together all day.  She liked the dance as well as I did.  But I wasn’t about to let this case drag on any longer than it needed to.  I had to cut to the chase.  “Where would be a convenient location to meet?  I’ve gotten my preliminary groundwork done, leaving you as the final piece.”

            “That quick?” there was a giggle tugging at the end of her succinct question, “You have a culprit in mind?  My defenses are all shored up?  Was there something behind those mob contacts?”

            Without looking at her, I found it more difficult to judge whether she was teasing me or whether she really believed I could produce such solid results so rapidly.  “Nothing so big as that, Ms. Lovelace.  I apologize if I raised your hopes unduly with my call.”

            “No, no…  Everything in good time, Mr. Kimblee.  Really, I prefer working with men who don’t jump to conclusions…prematurely.”

            “As to where we should meet?”  I’d spent enough money that day without having to feed another few coins into the pay phone.

            “Well, would I be imposing too much upon you to ask you to come to my place?  I’m home right now myself, you see…”

            I agreed to the meeting.  It was often enlightening to visit the home of the victim (and always worthwhile to visit the scene of the crime).  I exchanged a few further comments with Irene before checking back in with my apartment.  “I have one more stop to make and I might be late.”

            “Don’t wait up, you mean.”

            “I wasn’t going to say that.”  There was no reason to anymore, even if I usually aspired to a high degree of courtesy.  ‘Don’t stay up’ was understood.  “You always wait up.  You’re too kind.”

            “I have trouble sleeping when you’re out doing who knows what.”

            “I apologize.”  No matter what he said, he seemed to sleep well enough if I had given him some story in advance that was detailed and plausible and soothing enough.  I knew all the things he wanted to hear, but that didn’t mean I liked to lie.  “I’ll be with Ms. Lovelace and hopefully it won’t run on too late.”  It was hard to make specific promises about that sort of thing.  I had to be flexible.  It was part of the job.

            “Good night, Solf.”

            “Good night, Lon.  Have a nice dinner.”  I hung on the line a bit longer, smiling.  Whose life doesn’t contain some small rituals of this nature?  I heard my brother smiling in return.  With five more words between us, we concluded the call.

 

            The ride I secured to reach the Lovelace residence was with another member of the South City Ishvalan community.  I don’t know how large a part of South’s population they comprised, but I couldn’t help but imagine that, to a greater or lesser degree, all of these people were related.  The small name-card facing the back of the cab dubbed this fellow “Miryan Asad.”

            “Headed home, sir?” Miryan asked politely.

            “Not yet.  I wish I lived in a neighborhood like this one probably just as much as you do,” I chuckled, “I’m just visiting.”

            Compared to the other large cities of Amestris, South City wasn’t very old.  The entire settlement was less than half the age of Central, having come into being in its current form expressly at the military’s command.  As such, it should come as little wonder that a neighborhood such as this was all but the sole province of military officers and others who earned their wages on a healthy government stipend.

            Irene’s home was notable among its cohort for the many rose bushes spread without.  There was nothing in particular to support the notion, but I could not think the garden was Irene’s.  Such a hobby seemed well suited to a man of Roger’s age and presumed temperament.

            “Oh,” Irene spoke, coming out the door into the misty air as I paid the cab driver, “Mr. Kimblee, let me get that for you!  I didn’t realize you didn’t drive!”

            “Maybe once we’ve solved this matter you can add it to my fees, but I really don’t feel right having my fare paid by a lady who wasn’t even along for the ride,” I waved Miryan away and he proceeded off into the storm-hastened dark.

            “Roger was kind of a gentleman too,” Irene remarked.  The only change in her attire from that morning was the lack of a coat.  Now I could see her flashy red dress in all its splendor.  If this was really what she had worn to the funeral, I couldn’t blame the police for having some suspicions.  I couldn’t help but imagine it wouldn’t be so long before this cherrywood and white house had a new man thinking himself its master.  I knew how these things went.

            “Please,” Irene touched my arm, “Come inside.”

            I left Lon’s umbrella propped up by the door.  “Thank you for having me in.”

            “Think nothing of it.  It’s more private speaking here than anywhere else and I imagine you’d want to see the, um, crime scene, I suppose, sooner or later.”

            “You don’t sound so sure that it’s a crime scene.”

            Irene heaved a long sigh, “Roger died there, but I don’t imagine he was actually poisoned there.  It depends on how you define the location.”

            “He didn’t take ill suddenly?”  It was a game now to find out how much Irene knew (although there was possibly the option that she had hired the killer and specifically asked not to know his or her methods).  This hadn’t been a straightforward case of arsenic or cyanide poisoning.  Somehow, internal acids had built up to such levels of toxicity that they had eaten away at Roger Lovelace from the inside, but not in a manner that had inspired him to seek any help before simply ending up dead.  There might have even been some hope from the killer’s perspective that this would be taken as some horrific medical mystery rather than a murder, but the SCPD were too savvy for that.  The Thomas Prancet case out west had brought the attention of the justice system down in full force on the possible applications of alchemy in the commission of murder.

            “He was feeling unwell for about three days, but he didn’t want to go to the hospital.  He said it was just aches, some stomach trouble.  I thought it was just a bad flu right up through the night that he…”

            As Irene brought me into the parlor to take a seat, I could imagine how quickly the cops must have ruled out suicide just by looking at the place (even putting aside the inefficient and excruciating method of death- fancy house, beautiful young wife, rank, education, privilege- personally, I was most drawn to his library).

            “There was nothing unusual going on with him?”

            “Same old Roger,” Irene shrugged.  “He was exchanging research with some guys at the front and it was all he could do not to tell me every non-confidential detail of it.”

            “Your husband loved his work.”  Dr. Lovelace could have been my colleague (despite the difference in our focuses, there was always the potential for cross-disciplinary work).  Imagining his professional glee made me feel for him a little more distinctly.

            There was a sour twist in Irene’s smile.  “You have no idea…”

            “It was all he _ever_ talked about?” I guessed.

            “He didn’t always respect other people’s work.”  
            “Like whose?”  What did Irene do?  I instantly pictured her saying, “Mine.”

            “The non-alchemists at the hospital…  Other alchemists whose methods or attitudes he didn’t agree with…”  My eyes were drawn again to her sleek white gloves.  Irene, like Harding, seemed to always be wearing gloves.  (A touch of fashion?  Were gloves popular among a certain set of women at that time?  -Not that that answered for Harding…)  I could tell even through them that she had been quick to discard her wedding band.  If Irene had loved him (assuming she had ever) while he talked about his work, she must have been interested in that work.  “Ms. Lovelace, I have to ask, you aren’t, by any chance, an alchemist yourself, are you?”

            “Oh, you’re flattering me- I went to finishing school, not the university.  I couldn't handle anything so complex as alchemy.”

            “Now, don’t sell yourself short,” I chided her.  Irene didn’t strike me as the modest type, so this opened up a particular line of inquiry.  “Surely you learned something living with the doctor.”

            “He didn’t take students.”

            “So he wanted to be the only one who could save lives through his method?”

            “You should know better than I do how secretive alchemists can be about their research.  ‘Oh,’” Irene mocked the idea, “‘Look at this amazing thing I can do!’  But ask to see how and they never needed you around in the first place.”

            I was supposed to prove her innocence, but Irene wasn’t exactly doing the best job of selling me on it.  Of course, it was difficult to picture this disdain for alchemy linked to hiring someone to use those very same methods to kill.

            “I couldn’t help but notice your hands.  May I see?”

            I turned over both hands and stretched the right one out to her.  She held my hand gently between her own.  “It looks so simple.”

            “It’s more multifunctional that way.  If I want pinpoint accuracy I don’t want lots of unnecessary distractions.”

            “What you mean is, you think simplicity is beautiful.”

            “Complicated things can be beautiful too.”  I twitched as she ran a finger over the lines of the array.  My eyes skirted the edge of Irene’s smile.  “You were married for eight years?”

            ‘Yes.  But, you know, even when Roger was irritating, we didn’t fight.”

            “You need to be straight with me, Ms. Lovelace.  It’s in your best interests not to hold anything back from me.”  She had such lovely green eyes.  They looked so ruthlessly sincere that surely they were full of lies.  It was too practiced an innocence.  But which were the lies?  I wanted to know more about Irene (though, I assure you, for purely professional reasons).

            “You make a good argument, Mr. Kimblee,” she let my hand go.  I had barely argued at all.  “I’ll tell you everything I can think of, but, first, …maybe you’d like to eat?”

            I did like the sound of that, but it seemed unprofessional and I hated to impose.  Part of me wanted to see Irene cook.  She struck me as more of the type to have hired help running the kitchen than to be doing it herself.

            She continued speaking before I had a chance to state my mind.  “The kitchen is pretty much cleaned out though…  I haven’t had either the time or the inclination to shop since Roger died.”

            “Do you have any eggs?”  I rose, eager to put myself to work.

            “If just two will be sufficient…”

            “It will.”  Irene couldn’t have known when she invited me over that I’d end up exchanging my coat for an apron, could she?  What was I doing, showing off with some unnecessary alchemic egg-breaking techniques?  Irene set the table for two, but mostly she just watched.  No matter the task, I wanted to do everything just right.  Was Irene impressed by my performance?  …Did I want her to be impressed?  In any case, our small meal came out very nice.  Her compliments were more than I deserved.

            I left the apron on while we ate.  There were stains and smudges on the heavy cream-toned fabric.  Some were old and faded through repeated washes and scrubbings.  The newest ones were a shade browner than spots of pomegranate juice.  They weren’t blood.  I looked to see if Irene had taken any interest in my gaze.  Indeed, she was watching.

            “Sorry about those stains.  I just didn’t want to bother with them.  That apron’s old and headed toward the trash heap as it is.”

            “Did your husband have any family?  Any colleagues who can come by and help you with things around the house?”

            “Are you volunteering, _Solf_?”

            I let my first name pass.  “Sorry, my schedule’s not open enough for that.”  I wouldn’t have been talked into it anyway.  If I came by to assist, it would have been my own idea.  “I have business in Central soon and I don't know what my time will be like afterward.”  I had an inkling that I would be completely booked up, though it might have been pretentious to suggest I knew the mind of the military so well even if time proved me right.  “I’m investigating, Ms. Lovelace,” I reminded her.

            “You’re going to take the test.”

            Was it so obvious?

            “Do you think you’re good enough to pass?  What kind of show of talent do you have planned for them?”

            This really wasn’t relevant to the task at hand.  “Maybe I’ll break some eggs,” I grinned.

            “It’s a cute trick and you’re very handy with a frying pan, but I don’t think they’ll certify you for it.”  Irene dabbed her lips with her napkin.  I was impressed by how thoroughly she had managed to retain her lipstick through the meal.

            “I suppose you were right about alchemists then.  I’m keeping that to myself.”

            “Ladies are also supposed to have secrets,” Irene countered.  “I’ll start some more coffee.  Get your thoughts in order so you don’t forget anything and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

            The evening stretched longer, but the coffee stayed hot.  Irene might like to play a bit, but she was also willing to talk.  She let the topic of my alchemy drop and focused on my questions concerning her late husband.  Dr. Lovelace had no living family, he had several friends in the South City area, but she wasn’t particularly well acquainted with any of them, and if something hadn’t happened involving those mob connections, she couldn’t imagine who would have wanted him dead.  The matter of her relationship with Dr. Lovelace was trickier.

            “How did you meet him?”

            Her glance was skeptical.  “Does that matter?”

            “It might help me make sense of some of this.”  It wasn’t as if I was any sort of expert on romantic relationships in the first place, but I just couldn’t place Irene and Roger together in my mind in any way.  If Irene had been a surgeon or an alchemist or even a nurse, I would have been able to piece some kind of working (love-hate) relationship out of it but, apparently, the only work Irene did, outside of the household chores she claimed to only bore her, was some freelance stationery design.  She lived on her own before meeting Roger- there was no unhappy family to flee- I just couldn’t see it.  Was it honestly difficult, or was it merely somehow beyond me?

            “We met at dance hall, actually.  I’m not sure you would think it, but Roger could really dance.”

            “Well, I don’t know about him, but I can picture you.  …Irene, why did you marry Roger?”

            She fixed me with a particularly open look.  It’s impossible to strip away every mask and barricade on command, but this was the closest I had come to Irene’s core.  “I’m not going to lie, because I don’t think you’re the type to judge.  He asked me and I suppose I was sick of having a lack of routine and consistency in my life.  He was easy to get along with.  He spent more time working on his alchemic research or at the hospital than he ever spent with me, but while that would have bothered a lot of wives, I liked the space.  I guess I’m not a very romantic lady, Mr. Kimblee, but I don't think you’d call Roger a very romantic man either.”

            This was a portrait of a couple I could see.  I gave a slow nod, cataloguing all these things.  Perhaps other people wouldn’t care much to hear it, but I felt it weakened the case against Irene.  “And nothing about that changed near the end?  You didn’t suddenly have any reason to be angry or bored or disappointed with him?”

            “Things were the same…and that was how I liked them.  You’re…” her chair scraped loudly against the floor and she winced at the sound, “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but you’re not a very romantic man either, are you, Mr. Kimblee?”

            I’m wasn’t, and I’m not.  But, ever-aiming to be professional, my answer reflected that.

 

            I returned home to find my brother sleeping at this desk.  “Did you eat?” his note on the kitchen table inquired.

            I’d forgotten the groceries.  Eggs, bread, soap.  With each step, I owed a little more.

 

*****

 

            “Make sure and eat some lunch today, all right?”

            He worried about me too much.  Certainly I thought about him too, but he was sensitive.  He had been born with that temperament as surely as I’d been with mine.  I had always looked after Lon.  The foibles of his childhood were more sharply drawn in my memory than those of my own.  …I had thought about him for a very long time.

            “You get too wrapped up in things.  It can’t be good for your health.”

            I could’ve said the same myself.  “It’s okay,” I replied, solemn and calm, “I’m going to the hospital this morning, so you don’t have to worry about that.  I can ask them to give me a complete physical while I’m there.”

            Lon didn’t delay in flashing me a crooked little smile.  “Can other people even tell when you’re joking?  You have a poker face like a marble statue.”

            “It depends.”  How observant was the other person?  Did I want them to know that I was joking?

            “Good luck.”  Lon lowered his big, youthful eyes from my visage down into the depths of his coffee cup.  He was like a seer reading tea leaves.  “Take care.”

 

            The hospital was about as busy as you’d expect (there’s always trouble at the least convenient moment).  I was loath to interrupt anyone’s work; there was a steady hum of it, so I hung beside the receptionist’s desk and explained to her the gist of what had brought me in.  As soon as someone passed by who appeared to have a bit of free time, she called the other woman, a nurse, over.

            “You knew Dr. Lovelace personally?” I interviewed the nurse.

            “Yes.  He was a senior member of the surgery personnel.  I worked with him occasionally.”

            “Was he easy to get along with?”

            “Certainly.”

            “Did you know his wife?”

            “Not really.  I saw her at some holiday staff parties, but she seemed standoffish.  Maybe a bit stuck-up.  …She’s from Central, isn’t she?”

            “I hadn’t heard.”  So I could neither confirm nor deny it.  It wasn’t surprising to hear someone in the south connect Central City with Irene’s classy dress and general attitude of superiority.  Stereotypes and all that.  “If you had to guess, what sort of person do you think might have murdered him?”

            “Someone from his alchemic circles?  I know it’s not much, but it’s my best guess.  He was a good surgeon.”  The nurse wrinkled her nose, “It could be someone who wanted to take credit for his research.”

            “Yes,” I nodded, “I’d heard that possibility.  And are any of those possible thieves working here?”  It sounded too sharp and sly, “What I mean is,” I shifted from my stern investigating manner to a sweeter façade, “Are there any other alchemists working at the hospital?  …It’s best to start here and work my way out.”

            “Sorry, detective,” the nurse’s favorable reaction to my turning up the charm was visible, “As far as I know, Dr. Lovelace was the only one on our staff.  Or, at least he was the only one who actively used alchemy on the job.  It’s none of my business what the other folks here get up to on their off time.”

            It was pleasant to speak to the nurse.  She seemed a likable woman in her combination of no-nonsense professionalism and motherly concern.  This was someone, I imagined, who took great pride in doing her job well.  “And who around here would do you think would be the best person to bother with a few further questions regarding Dr. Lovelace?”

            “That would be the head of surgery, Dr. Tiersen.  But,” she neatly anticipated my next inquiry, “He’s in the OR right now, so you’ll have to wait or come back later.  …It will probably be a while.”

            “Can I leave him a message?”   The human atmosphere thrummed around us.  I had taken up too much of her time already.  “I’ll just write a note and give it to the receptionist.”

            “Please do,” she encouraged me, “I’ll make sure he looks at it as soon as he’s scrubbed out.”

            “Thank you, miss.”  (Where “miss” instead of “ma’am” never failed to deliver improved results.)  I used my own pencil and notepad:

 

            “Dr. Tiersen,

I am investigating Dr. Lovelace’s unfortunate death.  Any insights you might possess regarding the case would be greatly appreciated.  Leave a message at [allow me to retract the telephone number for Mr. Shephard’s sake] for S. J. Kimblee to let me know when I can get back to you.  Thank you for your cooperation.

                        -Solf J. Kimblee, private eye”

 

 

            I went back to Shephard Electric with the intent to temporarily tie up the phone line with a bout of research motivated by my newer leads.  As soon as I opened the door, Shephard took off his spectacles and approached me.  “Miz Irene Lovelace gave you a ring here ‘bout half an hour ago, right when I’d finished opening up.  She asked for you to call her back as soon as you arrived.”

            “Interesting.”  There were less than twelve hours between our last encounter and this call.  “I’ll take it in the back if you don’t mind.”

            “As always,” Shephard allowed.  Some vague grumbling issued from the other set of workbenches in the vicinity of Jim and Tom, but there would be nothing gained by either of them speaking up and they wouldn’t make eye contact with me.  Shephard and I had an understanding that reached back to our first meeting and the decision regarding my working at the shop.  My co-workers weren’t in on it.  They didn’t need to be.  Although, maybe if they had been they wouldn’t have wasted as much time alternatively irritated with and nervous around me.  …In retrospect, I can’t say they didn’t deserve what they got.

            I closed the door to the back office, sat down at Shephard’s desk, and picked up the phone.  “Hello?  Ms. Lovelace?  This is-“

            “Mr. Kimblee,” she filled in smoothly, “…You have a memorable voice.  You’re kind of charismatic.”

            “Charismatic?” I repeated, passing judgment, or not, on the description.  “In any case, Ms. Lovelace, I’m calling you back in response to the message you left with Mr. Shephard.”

            “Oh, yes.  I remembered something this morning that I don’t think I told you.  It’s hard to keep straight what I’ve told you and what I’ve told the police at this point, you see.”

            “That’s understandable,” I said, though it wasn’t a problem I’d experienced frequently.

            “Roger had told me that he’d made a new alchemist friend recently.  A local, someone younger than him.  …I thought maybe you’d know the man since there’s not exactly an overwhelming number of alchemists running around this town.”

            “You never met the man?  You don’t know his name?”

            “No.  And I can’t read half the chicken scratch on Roger’s desk calendar, so it’s not much help.”  
            “Hmm.”  I couldn’t think of a good response for this, but it could relate to my own question for her.  “I’ll think about it, but while you’re on the line, may I ask you something?”

            “Please.  Go right ahead.”

            “You mentioned that your husband corresponded with other alchemists by mail.  You might not be able to find out whom _he_ had written to, but you should be able to see who had recently written to him.  Do you think you could look through his papers and pass that information on to me?”

            “Do you want to hold the line or should I call you back?  Roger’s things have been in a bit of a disarray since the police came prying into everything.”

            “I’ll hold,” I offered.  I wasn’t going anywhere.  I doubted the surgeon would be free to call me yet.

            “I’ll be back then.”  There was a soft clunk as Irene set the phone down, then a slightly fuzzy silence.  The new acquaintance, being a local, might not have exchanged letters with Roger, but there was always the possibility.  And, if not, it wasn’t as if I knew this man was the culprit and all that I lacked was his identity.  Uncertified alchemists might fly under the radar here and there, but State Alchemists knew of their colleagues to a great or lesser degree.  Every alchemist Roger had corresponded with was a possible link in the chain- not, probably, his killer, but a person who might know of him.

            I thought about the alchemists of South City.  Even if we hadn’t actually met, I thought I had at least heard of all of them.  I’m as interested in other people now as I was then and I suppose my fellow alchemists remain the ones most likely to catch my attention.  I’m as human as anyone else in that respect, aren’t I?  Just because I don't need anyone doesn’t mean I don’t find life more interesting when lived with company.  I suppose I felt most likely to uncover a kindred spirit within their ranks.

            As I ran through my internal list, some of those on it were immediately nixed as candidates for the category of “Roger Lovelace’s mysterious new friend.”  For what it was worth, Irene seemed sure that the person was a man (as Roger had apparently told her).  While I was fairly certain at this point that Irene wasn’t having an affair (at least not currently), I couldn’t rule out the possibility of Roger having illicit liaisons of his own with the same level of sureness in my judgment.  However, neither was there any evidence to explicitly support the notion.  Man or woman, the “younger” part was probably true- assuming there was any such “friend” at all.  With all Irene had told me the night before, I found it strange that this had slipped through the cracks.  The thing was, her motivation eluded me.  Was she flailing around in her confusion and anxiety to offer up any tidbit of information that would lead the police in an alternative direction?  Making things up for that same reason?

            Based on what I had learned, while there seemed to be no other leads, the case against Irene herself was not a powerful one.  She had the opportunity, of course, like any other spouse, but I hadn’t pinpointed a motive, let alone the means to carry out such a bizarre murder.  It was perplexing.  If she had an accomplice, she was managing to conceal this person better than any gangster I had worked with or ne’er-do-well I had interrogated.  Yet I had difficulty (not just with my pride) believing she was savvier than me.  There were just too many rough edges to her manner of sharing information.

            The other end of the line had turned so silent I hoped I hadn’t been disconnected.  I held my breath and listened quietly.  The vague sound of rustling papers let me know our line of communication was still open.  Despite the fact that Irene had technically been the one to initiate this conversation, she had said her piece and I half expected her to hang up on me.

            I directed my waiting mind back to my internal directory of alchemists.  Shephard was probably too old to be it (and I’d have heard about it anyway, the way the old man liked to chat), and the same went for Mrs. Angeli and her potions.  Not Aaron Forest.  Farmiz Muir?  Calvin Strauss?  My brother, the dabbler?  It was a ridiculous thought- a good three or four people aside from me even knew that he’d studied the art (in his usual “I’m interested in what you’re interested in, Solf,” spirit).  And myself…  That was the extent of the alchemists I was aware of in South City and its environs.  I was the most scheming and ambitious among them.

            “Mr. Kimblee?”

            “Ah, yes?”

            “I dug up what I could- I didn’t want to keep you waiting too long so there might be a few non-alchemists mixed up in here.  I don’t know who all these people are.”

            “It’s okay, just give me the names and I’ll look into them.”  I picked a pen up off the desk and sketched a few experimental lines.  It was pretty blotty, but for the moment it would do.  Tim Marcoh, Dolores Perry, Anna Linden, Aaron Forest, Isaac McDougal, Col. David Powell, August Green.

            “Everyone else is someone I can pick out as some cousin or coworker.”

            “No, this is good.  I appreciate it.”

            “Ah, well, I suppose I need to get going.  I have a few errands to run before the meeting I have scheduled with that awful Officer Harding.”

            I couldn’t suppress the smile that brought to my face, although the bothersome nature of Irene’s tale still hung, oppressive and dark, in my mind.  “You have a pleasant time there.”

            “Hmph,” Irene huffed, “I imagine we’ll be in touch, Mr. Kimblee?”

            “But of course.”  I wrapped up the call and let Irene go her way.

            I ran my finger down the list and picked up a dab of ink on my fingertip.  Prior to the actual inking of my tattoos, I had experimented with drawing the arrays onto my hands, but it was tough to find a substance that would last.  Temporary measures proved _too_ temporary.  They were too easily smudged through ordinary wear and swear and rendered too fragmentary (and, thus, dangerous) to use.  Art and science progressed in a similar manner- one step at a time, through trial and error.  I knew Tim Marcoh was a State Alchemist (at the time I didn’t have the slightest idea what fascinating things our future together held).  Colonel Powell was one of the more important members of South City command (and not an alchemist).  I couldn’t say about the other four (though Perry sounded familiar).

            I took the list to Shephard for his input.  “I don’t think any of these people are involved, but I like to be thorough.”

            “Perry’s State.  The others- I don’t know.”

            “You know this person?” I was amused.

            “She’s Electric.”

            “Is that her name, or is she really that great?”  I couldn’t resist.

            “Oh, you know,” Shephard chuckled.  “…How goes the case?”

            “I don’t mean to imply that I prefer easy cases, but it’s perplexing.”

            “Uh, well, how’s the pretty lady?  Cuz I would be more than happy to keep her company if she’s feeling lonely…”

            “I’m not sure you’re her type.”  I mean, just what Irene wanted, right?  Another middle-aged alchemist- and this one without half the education, connections, and money of the first.

            Shephard immediately turned my words around: “Maybe you’re the sort she likes then.”

            “She only likes me as well as the job I’m doing.”

            “And the lady isn’t off the hook yet,” Shephard concluded.

            “Precisely.”

            Shephard rolled his eyes and patted my shoulder sympathetically.  I couldn’t help but think he had entirely the wrong idea about what motivated my detective work.  “Anything I can do to provide some backup?”

            “Just keep on doing what you always do, Mr. Shephard.  Mind the telephone and keep your eyes open.  It’s a real help to me.”

            “You’re going right back out again?”

            “One last call first, but I think I need to clear my head.”  The overcast atmosphere was good for that.

            I used the phone up front instead of in the back to make my call to Sam and request he do something that I could not.  “Will you call the police station for me and find out when Detective Harding is meeting with Ms. Lovelace?”  I didn’t think it sounded like a suspicious request.  There wouldn’t be anything strange about Sam checking the department calendar.

            “I imagine, for my own good, it would be best not to ask why,” Sam chuckled (it was that “hard-boiled” thing).  He sounded chipper.  He probably would have liked to tell me how his lunch date had turned out, but he was on the clock even more than I was.  ‘I’ll call right back.  Don’t move an inch.”

            Shephard watched, slyly amused, as I hung up but remained otherwise immobile.  Doing nothing assured that the time passed slowly, but it was only a matter of seconds before the phone rang and was back in my hand.  “It’ll be quarter to twelve, according to the desk.  …Now Harding’s going to think I want to see him about something.”

            “Tell him there was a mix-up.  Thank you, Sam.”

            “Don’t forget your umbrella,” Shephard reminded me as I apologized for my swift flight from the shop.  “Oh, wait,” he paused, grasping the black one I had left by the door, “This isn’t your umbrella.”

            “It’s the one I’m using,” I said, without explanation.

            “Switching color schemes, are we?”

            “Probably not.”  I gave a wave-less wave over my shoulder and walked out under the cloud-bright sky.  Something about Irene did not add up- well several things, actually.  The thing was, to figure them out, the best idea I could come up with was to watch her (finding anyone who knew anything of her beyond the most obvious surface details seemed as grim a prospect).  But I still had my work cut out for me chasing other leads, or non-leads as they were, toward her husband's killer, and, besides that, Irene possessed a near preternatural ability to tell not only when I (and perhaps others?) laid my eyes upon her, but when I would call or arrive.  Even if I had the time for it, my gaze would eventually draw her attention.  I needed a temporary co-conspirator.  A drizzle began.  I opened Lon's umbrella.

            I needed the assistance of someone who fit two criteria: Irene could not be acquainted with the person (and I could not be sure she had never met Giancarlo or any of her husband's other mob contacts) and they would have to be able to provide a convincing excuse if they were caught watching her.  It was trickier work than you could pay a kid on the street to handle for you.  It was the sort of thing I liked to do myself.  In that sense, I was a little upset with Irene for taking this opportunity away from me.

            I considered my options.  Even if they hadn't met, I would never have actively involved my brother in any con games (although I will admit to making him a passive player in some of my work) or investigations.  He was opposed to lying and terrible at it besides.  I didn't trust any of my other mob contacts not to turn around and immediately try to sell the news of my curiosity back to Irene.  I suspected Qarash was too honest for it.  I'll admit to you that I had few friends.  Usually I did not need any.  By this point, I was positioned on the street corner facing the large windows of the Jerso Diner.  It was close to the apartment building where I lived, so I frequented the place with my brother.  Lily Jerso liked me because I was a generous tipper.  She had five children to feed.  However, it wasn't any of the Jerso staff or family that caught my eye at this juncture, but a thoroughly unimpressive young lady- my downstairs neighbor, Nell Owens.

            The spark of an idea had caught flame and I crossed the street to speak with her.  Viewed from a distance, Nell appeared perpetually dejected, with poor posture, tidy but bland clothing, and an unremarkable face.  However, when you spoke to her you became aware that there was some fight in her yet.  She was a struggling writer (I presume she still is).  She was always alone, though I gathered from conversation with our landlady that she ran up quite a phone bill conversing with her mother.  I passed between the tables, raising a distracted but friendly hand to a waitress who did a double take at my blue-inked palm.

            "Nell.  Hello."

            "Hello, uh," Nell mumbled, looking up from her eggs.  She couldn't remember my name or couldn't connect it with my face.  I believe she didn't have a poor memory so much as she didn't spend enough time observing to really put faces down in her mind.

            I didn't offer my name.  "May I sit down?"

            "Oh, yes, feel free," she answered, glad to be freed from the expectation of remembrance.  "I was, uh, just eating lunch."  She also had a pen and notebook laid out on the table.  "Is it..." she struggled to fill the empty air, "Your lunch break?  You work as an electrician, right?"

            "Part-time."  I smiled to hear that this remained familiar even when my name was lost.  "I'm doing another sort of work today, Nell, and I was wondering if you might help me."  I didn't hand her the full story.  It was unnecessary to achieve my intended result and I generally considered it advantageous not to recklessly share my identity as a private detective.  I phrased it more as a matter of personal interest in a certain woman.  Someone I found attractive, but I believed might already be involved in a relationship- possibly with a certain police detective.  The hook for Nell, aside from pure friendliness or charity, was to be the extra depth such serious people-watching would bring to her writing.  Nell was an easy target.  This was an easy game.

            I gave her Irene's address and that of the police station, along with my insider information about when she would be expected to appear there, since I knew Irene would have some amount of business at each location.  "Okay, I've got it.  ...So, where and when will we meet up to talk about this stuff I observe?"

            "Is your apartment okay?  I don't want to interrupt my brother while he's working."  Even if Lon had been made aware of the basics of my investigation, I was still intent on separating him from the case.  He wasn't cut out for that kind of life.  I was beginning to wonder what I would do with him when I passed the state certification exam.  I was ready and willing to engage in the whatever service my nation would desire of me, military or otherwise, but if I were called to some far part of the nation or sent to the front, doing so would separate me from my brother for the first time in his life.  For me it would make no difference.  For Lon...I couldn't say yet.

            "If you don't mind that it's kind of a mess," Nell shrugged.

            I prefer neatness myself, but it wasn't my residence.  "It's fine.  I'll be by before seven o'clock."

            "Then let me get the receipt and I'll be off," Nell downed the rest of her coffee and picked up her notebook.

            I reached for my wallet.  "Allow me."

            She let me and she left.  I would have to hope it was good enough.

            I turned the corner, leaving Baker Street for Bower.  The gray half-dribbles of rain had tapered off.  There was a cab sitting in front of our building.  My brother was talking to the driver.  I stopped, watching from a distance.  What was going on?  Further details painted a murky puzzle for me to unravel.  Mysteries upon mysteries.  The driver was Qarash, laughing congenially, staring long and comfortably into my brother's wide hazel eyes.  His hand, the white glove standing out starkly against the gray sky and dark car, stretched out the open window.  In his fingers, clutched as lightly as a promise, a red flower cast its adoring gaze upward.  Where the sun should've warmed it, it settled for my brother's face.

            Lon took the flower.  He handled it so carefully.  I knew the intensity of that delicate touch.  The stem turned slowly between his fingers.  He continued to speak as he regarded the flower.  How I desired to hear what he was saying...

            It did not take long.  Qarash drove off.  Lon bent down to pick up the brown paper bag sitting beside his feet.  My white umbrella, hooked over his arm, struck the pavement and tumbled from his grasp.  I took this as my cue to enter.  "You look a little overloaded."

            "Oh, Solf!  You're back."  There was nothing guilty or embarrassed or shy about his tone or gaze.  "The bag's not heavy, I just don't want to crush this flower."  He offered it up to my appraising eyes.  It was a red gerbera daisy, as striking a shade as my best silk tie.

            "You don't see many of these in the city," I remarked.  Not red daisies, nor any flowers at all.  Then again, perhaps we lived in the wrong part of the city for it.  There were roses enough surrounding Irene's home.

            "I think it came from a florist," Lon warbled, allowing me to take the lead up the stairs to our apartment.  With an umbrella on each arm, I unlocked the door and let us in.  I removed my hat and coat while Lon abandoned the groceries (the soap, eggs, and bread that I had failed to return home with the previous day) to fish out a glass vase to preserve and display his prize.

            Later, as I scribbled up some notes, mentally sorting the morning's developments, the red flower haunted the edges of my vision.  Lon sniffed it and threw himself into his current composition-in-progress with renewed vigor.  I wanted to ask about the flower, but could not.  At one o'clock, the telephone rang and broke my reverie.

            "Hello.  This is Solf J. Kimblee speaking."

            "Kimblee, this is Shephard."  There was a long pause as I held my breath as well as my silence, waiting for Shephard to speak further.  I knew he would.  He was composing his thoughts.  "There's a ruckus on the corner of Baker and Arnhill.  I can see it from my window.  The police have already come to the door to ask me some questions."  Here Shephard paused again, but continued at length without prompting.  "A police officer was found dead down the alley way."

            “I’ll get my coat.”

            “Is something the matter?” Lon worried at watching me rush.

            There was only so much I could protect him from.  The next day’s newspaper would reveal any lies I told.  Apparently there’s been a murder near the electrician’s shop.  I’m going to see what’s happening.”

            “How terrible.”  If Lon showed a higher than average degree of anguish over an unfortunate event he knew scarcely anything about and concerning a man he had never met, I didn’t give it much consideration- he was always like that, it composed a significant amount of his charm.  “Be careful not to do anything that makes you look too suspicious.”

            “Bail money is next to the pickles,” I joked.

            “What if it isn’t enough?” he wondered where a man like me might have quipped about “What if I decide a night in the lockup might be good for you?”  “I’m curious, not stupid,” I shook my head, “I won’t get arrested.  I promise.”

            When I reached the sidewalk outside our building I raised a hand in a quick parting gesture without bothering to look back at our window.  I could trust that Lon was watching (what else had he learned from me?)  I could’ve asked to borrow his bicycle, but I settled for striding toward Shephard’s shop at a less than sedate pace, the edge of my coat billowing out behind me.

            The general nature of the small civilian crowd that had gathered near the scene of the crime was hushed and cautious.  With my unimposing height I slipped seamlessly into their midst, weaving my way along the edge of the police barrier to the front of Mr. Shephard’s shop.  The barrier was one of a handful of indications I could see of the crime itself.  Officer George was holding back the crowd with a string of questions and vague reassurances.  Officer Phelps was examining the ground- a bit of blood spatter had caught his eye.  I couldn’t see enough to extrapolate a meaningful distribution pattern- I wasn’t going to linger where I might be picked up on account of the “the proud criminal returns to the scene of his crime,” suspicion (it had happened before, and if Detective Harding were here it could easily happen again).

            “Boss!  Kimblee’s here!” Jim shouted into the depths of the storeroom at my approach.

            “Should I come back there?”

            “Yes, please!” Shephard answered, followed by the sound of something metal dropping to the floor (typical).

            As soon as I stepped through the door, he pulled it shut behind me.  The next thing I knew, his rough hands were gripping the front of my coat.  He accosted me with a rough whisper: “I saw that bloody scene before it was covered up and cordoned off.  I know that flowery flare pattern, Kimblee.  That’s _your_ M.O.”

            “Do you think that I would lay my hands on a police officer?” I hissed, insulted but no panicked, “If I were a murderer, would I be idiotic enough to kill right beside my place of employment?”

            “People with their backs to a wall will do crazy things,” Shephard pressed on undaunted, “That cop was a rookie.  And he was on his way down here looking _for you_.”

            That was news.  “Me?”

            “It’s not like they’re going to just tell me about it, but you’re at least a person of interest in the Lovelace case- if not more than that.”

            “When I left I went to the Jerso’s place and then I went home.  It may be an all but meaningless alibi, but it’s the truth.”  I was only a fraction taller than Shephard.  We met each other eye to eye.  “I’d never heard of Roger Lovelace beyond his second name until I read his obituary in the paper.  You’re with the cops on this one, Mr. Shephard?  Well, tell me why then.  Why do you think I murdered him?”

            Something about my gaze became unbearable and Shephard turned away.  “…I’m not the detective here.  …And how can I really trust you?”

            Could he say that while looking me in the eye?  I was unwavering.  “When has this relationship ever been about trust?”

            “…You don’t kill people,” Shephard relented, letting out an airy puff of a sigh.  “To trust or not to trust, well, that’s on me.  …And whatever else you get up to around this city, that’s one thing I don’t believe you do.”  He released his grip on my coat.  “You shouldn’t hang around here though- not if you don’t want to tango with Harding.”

            “I appreciate it.”

            “Go out the back door.”

            “I will.”  As much as I wished I could see the carnage that was supposed to so resemble my work, I had no real choice but to heed Shephard’s warning.  I slipped out the back and considered my options regarding where to go.  My apartment would be the obvious place to find me, so I couldn’t consider it much of a safe haven against the peering eyes of the police.  For the moment, the Jerso Diner would provide a place to sit and gather my thoughts.

            “Let me get you a menu, Mr. K,” a familiar waiter, the youngest of Lily’s sons, led me to a table toward the back.

            “No thank you, there’s no need.  I’ll settle for a cup of coffee.”

            “You got it,” the teen agreed.  Despite his dark skin and hair, he had turquoise-colored eyes (he really was the son who’d gotten all the looks).

            Left to myself I got straight to the core of this dilemma.  There were two points to consider here: who would want to frame me, and who would have the means to?  Where a more average man might have allowed his thoughts to scatter to the winds with alarm, I was able to calmly sort through the facts of the situation.  And what I discovered, as I stirred a bit of sugar into my coffee was that the list of people I was aware of with the technical know-how to potentially mimic my methods was nearly identical to the list of alchemists I had developed while seeking out Roger Lovelace’s murdered.  This was no coincidence.  The odds of that were ridiculous.  The same person had killed the rookie policeman and the Cold-Cutting Alchemist.  Of that I was certain.  One very clever, adaptable person.

            And another thing regarding odds- sure, he might have been mistaken, but Shephard had found the policeman’s murder a believable example of my work- albeit a sort of work that he had never seen.  When it came to the practice of alchemy, Shephard had more than this fair share of shortcomings, but never let it be said he was completely lacking in talent- the man had a rare eye for detail (there had to be something that kept that jack of all trades lifestyle feasible, after all).

            Someone who was not me, who wanted to create a similar set of arrays, would they really follow their path to an identical conclusion?  To the same chemical formula, fine, but to the same pattern?  The same style?

            How long ago had this begun?

            While I was conducting my own investigations, someone had been investigating _me_.

            Alchemists tending to be as secretive as I had discussed with Irene, I hypothesized what must have happened: I had tipped my hand too far to some man or woman I’d believe would never know what to do with it.  …I desperately needed to know more details of the copycat detonation.

            When the youngest Jerso child came over to refill my cup, I accosted him with an expression that I hoped would share a reasonable measure of anxiety.  “Mr. K?  Is there a problem?”

            It worked like a charm.  “I know this fairly unorthodox, but is there any size of tip that would allow me to use your phone?”

            “Nah, it’s not as weird as you think.  Sometimes drunks stumble in during the evening since we’re open so late and we have to call home for them.  Or a cab.  C’mon, it’s no problem.”

            I thanked him profusely.  There would be a sizeable tip to cover this courtesy.

            My brother was probably curious about me, but I could call him later once some of these burning questions were off my mind.  I rang up Sam.  “Hello?”

            “Hello, this is Sa- oh,” his voice caught as he realized who he was speaking to.

            “I’m terribly sorry to intrude again when you must be s o busy, but I need to know two things about the circumstances surrounding that unlucky officer.”  I stopped, half to await his response and half because I could hear a voice in the background.  I knew that voice.

            “Who’s that?” Detective Harding was asking Sam.

            “Just a friend,” he answered evasively, “I was just about to say that I couldn’t talk.  You know how it is though- I’ve got to pick up in case it’s something important.”

            “Your friend from yesterday?” another officer, Churchville, laughed.

            “Not at all,” Sam huffed, indignant.  He spoke directly into the phone again, “I’ve got people here.  I can’t chat.”  There was an edge to his tone.  He really meant it.  There was the distinct possibility that if Harding had said I was involved that Sam might even have reason to believe it.  He wasn’t crooked.  If I were a killer then that was that.  We could only be friends so far.

            “Sorry for bothering you.  Have a productive afternoon,” I closed.  That he didn’t secretly signal to Harding that he was speaking to me and keep me on the line until the police arrived could be seen as a gift itself.

            I went back to my regular table and finished my second cup of coffee, considering my next move.  If Shephard had noticed me, he would have told me.  That source of information was all dried up.  Could I go back and poke around some more at the scene?  I had to disabuse myself of the notion- it just wasn’t going to work.

            With the jaundiced eye of the SCPD glaring down my trail, many of my legal channels of information gathering were swiftly clamming up.  The grayer spectrum of the city beckoned.  I left cash behind on the table.  …Back to the gin joint.

            It was a good time for taking the back alleys or getting a ride.  I didn’t want to paint too large a target on my back as I prowled through South’s streets.  Lon’s umbrella felt like good cover to hide my flashy whiteness.  I held it low to conceal my fedora at least from distant, patrolling eyes.

            “Hey, gumshoe!  You love this rain, don’t you?”

            Very nice timing on Qarash’s part.  “Not exactly.  And this isn’t going to be a very long ride.”  I wouldn’t have him take me straight to Giancarlo’s doorstep, but rather some innocuous stop nearby.  There were spheres in my life that overlapped and those I would rather keep separate.  “But it’s great to see you.”

            “You seem chipper compared to the last time I saw you out in the rain.”

            “It’s really more nervous energy than anything else,” I admitted.

            “You live a kind of high-paced life, don’t you?” Qarash mused.  “Maybe you need to think about taking it easy more often.”  There were long pauses between his sentences, as he was clearly giving the matter some serious thought.  “Maybe take a vacation?  Find a girlfriend?  I know you could get one if you tried…”

            “Working is fun for me.”

            I tried to think back to what little I had seen of that crime scene: onlookers, officers, a bit of blood.  But had there been any evidence of an array?  Chalk or charcoal smudges?  There could have been one that had been wiped away or obscured by blood afterward, but _had_ there?  Or had the array in question been on the person of the killer?  There had been no sign of any arrays left behind at the Lovelace’s home or on Roger’s body- only an ambiguous mark on his arm.  What had looked like a bruise might have been a contact mark- every method I had used in painting my palms pre-tattoos had, to a greater or lesser degree, reacted somewhat like that.

            About three-fourths of the way to my destination, I spoke up again.  “You like your job too, don’t you?”

            “Very much so.”

            "I know you're quite the city guide, Qarash, what between being a taxi driver and a lifelong resident of the south and all."  In the rearview mirror I could see him nodding.  "I was hoping that you might be able to give me a suggestion then as to a shop where I could purchase some fresh-cut gerbera daisies."  My expression did not look as cold as I felt when I mentioned it.  I looked at Qarash's hands and saw his fingers tightening around the wheel.

            "My sister runs a flower stand at North and Parade."

            “Thank you, Qarash.”  When I stepped out of the cab, I felt reassured that the boundaries of at least some parts of my world would remain unchanged.  When this mess was wrapped up, I’d bring my brother a whole bouquet of daisies.  What look would cross his innocent face when he saw that?

            …Of course, little by little, I was hemorrhaging funds on this case.  I was starting to suspect that any of the about three ways I could picture this playing out now, I wasn’t going to get paid.

            At this hour, the cogs in the machine of Giancarlo’s place were beginning to turn.  Maybe it was still a bit early to drink, but it was a fine time for business.  I got the impression that within the world of organized crime if you were up before ten o’clock in the morning it meant you hadn’t slept the night before.  My appearance was scarcely noticed (perhaps only by those who weren’t familiar with me and thought my nice smile spoke too much of undercover cop).  I wove between the busy men, toward the back where I could see the bare spot on the top of Giancarlo’s head glinting under the lamplight.

            “Hey!  It’s Kimblee!” Giancarlo cheered, “You on the lam, pal?  We all heard about that cop!  I think there’s a story there!”

            “Sure, there’s a story, but it’s not mine,” I said.  “You guys can do me a big favor if you know or can find out a little more about that crime than I know.”

            “Whaddya want to know?  Shoot.”

            “Any witnesses?” I eyed the borderline crowd that had come to listen to my conversation with the boss.

            “Nobody _saw_ it happen, but I was one of the ones that _heard_ it,” a big, serious guy spoke up.  “So I saw the scene before the cops.  Pretty rough stuff, I gotta say.  Made me lose my appetite.  It was worse than when you blow a guy’s brains out- he didn’t just look like he’d been shot- of course, I guess he wasn’t- but part of his face was kind of, uh, melted.”

            “Melted?” someone echoed incredulously.

            Not melted, precisely.  Dissolved.  Like Roger Lovelace, just externally and with violence that had lasted only a moment, as opposed to the alchemist’s internal and treacherously quiet demise.  “Tell me then,” I carried on, not merely unphased by such grim facts, but buoyed onward by the knowledge that I was right; the same killer had struck twice, “Did you see any sign of alchemic activity?”

            “A, uh, sign?”

            All right, maybe that was too much for the man.  Sometimes I had to remind myself I was in a very specialized field.  Not just anyone could be expected to understand these things.  “What I mean is, alchemic arrays,” I turned up my palms to display as an example, “For activating formulas.  Like so.”

            “There weren’t any- not drawn around there.  I was just coming out of Tony’s Liquor and I saw the policeman on the other side of the street.  I wasn’t paying much attention since I was within my rights.  Anyway, I was facing away and I heard someone yell, along with the strangest sound, which must have been the alchemy and I just don’t know what the sound of a man exploding is like.”

            “I’m kinda disappointed to hear that it wasn’t you, Kimblee,” someone remarked.

            “The cops don’t know my work like you do,” I addressed Giancarlo in particular, “So why do they think I did this?”

            “Well, aside from the alchemy angle, someone was seen fleeing the scene in a white coat with a white umbrella,” another man supplied.  “And that’s how you…well, I guess you’ve got a black umbrella today.”

            “I didn’t see that,” the eyewitness murmured weakly, “But the culprit could have fled down the alley the other way.  No one I saw had a white coat.  No one was leaving either- not fast or slow.”

            “Giancarlo, do you think you’d know if some genius alchemic hit man had been hired to come down to South City and off a man or two?”  It was such a ludicrous question I could hardly bear to ask it.

            “I’d know if he were an genius alchemic _mob_ hit man,” Giancarlo offered, cheeky and grinning.  …Which meant he hadn’t heard about it and, really, he had no idea (ultimately, I was probably the person most likely to be aware of such an individual – I didn’t know of any, but wouldn’t it make a good story?).

            I didn’t have time for this, but there I was, smiling anyway.  “I won’t be much use to my client if I’m wrongfully arrested,” I chuckled, “Or at least,” I sobered at the likely truth at work here, “I wouldn’t be, if that weren’t exactly what I think she wants from me.”

            “Set up by a dame?  You’re just about the last guy I know that I’d expect that to happen to.  But, you know,” Giancarlo stroked his mustache, “My offer to help you out if I can still stands.”

            “I’m pretty much shut out of my apartment building for tonight, I imagine.  …If I’m a suspect, I’ll have to face police scrutiny sooner or later.  I just want to go in on my own terms.”

            “And when would that be?”

            “Preferably with the real killer’s confession in my hands.”

            Several men laughed at how cocky I was.  When you make people laugh, you put them at ease.  “You wanna borrow the back room to do some work?” Giancarlo guessed.  “And someone to keep an eye on your place to tell you when the heat lets up?”

            “I don’t want anything that will be too much trouble for you.”  I preferred not to owe Giancarlo or his associates anything I couldn’t easily pay back.

            “Go on,” Giancarlo pulled a heavy key ring out of his pocket and removed one bronze-colored key from the bunch, pressing it firmly into my hand.  “I’ve got you covered.”

            The backroom was dark.  I flipped on the lights, which were irritating as they flickered and blinked (I was a part-time electrician- I could have fixed it if anyone had just asked), and sat down at the table, hooking Lon’s damp umbrella over the back of the chair.  It was a mess back there, but all I needed at that moment were a pencil and paper.  I found some and I cleared off a space.  The alchemist who wanted to put the blame on me – the same person who had killed Roger Lovelace- had modified an array they were relatively familiar with to achieve an effect similar to my preferred means of expression.  It was not half as artful as mine.

            But if their array could be transformed so simply into mine, surely the reverse would also be true.  With a steady, practiced hand, I began to draw, testing the possibilities.  Did it work by interfering or interacting with carbon?  Sulfur?

            I became incredibly engrossed in my task.  It was an interesting problem.  …But even when I had what I believed was the likeliest answer (because it was workable, if slightly sloppy, in the incarnation that would extend to replicate my art- this fit the killer’s work, if not my inclinations) lying on the table before me, I was forced to admit to myself that it didn’t solve anything.  It was a gun without fingerprints or registration.  I didn’t know who had made it.  I didn’t know who’d used it.  I didn’t know _why_.

            I redirected my attention before I spent the whole night in more guesses and telephone tag with potential sources of information.  Outside of myself, there was one person to whom I had obligations.  There was a possibility that he was out (slim); there was a possibility that the police were there right now just waiting for this moment (could be), but I had rushed out the respond to Shephard’s call at something of a breakneck pace.  “Hello Lon.”

            “Solf!”  I could picture the way he was probably clutching the phone, caught between anxiety and relief.  “I was starting to wonder when you didn’t come back.  …I was thinking about calling Mr. Shephard.”

            “I’m glad that I spared you the trouble.  That’s why I called, you know.  There’s a bit of difficulty right now regarding the police, so I’m not sure when I’ll be home.”

            “It’s lonely eating by myself,” he said, less worried and more petulant.  It was the tone of the conflicted: I don’t want to be too much of a bother, and I certainly don’t want to make you angry, but why won’t you think of me for a moment?  …Or something like that.

            “I’ll make an attempt,” I offered.  There was no reason not to.

            “…You know it’s past five o’clock, right?”

            “Yes.”

            There was silence on the line for several beats.  “Ms. Lovelace called looking for you,” Lon gave up this bit of news with reluctance.  “She asked for you to come back to her place.  She said she’d have something better than two eggs for you deal with.”

            Well, that sounded suspiciously like a “date.”  I could trace the origins of his hesitation, I thought.  I wasn’t just working- I was off ditching him to spend time with some woman he’d barely met.  He understood why I would be headed off to Central to take the certification test, and it was surely something to be taken more seriously than some dinner, but he wasn’t going to like it on his own.  “Did she say when?”

            “Um…”  I could hear a bit of paper crumpling between his fingers.  “Anytime, she said.  Anytime after five.”  It was an answer that didn’t match up with the reality of his checking a note, but Lon was a terrible liar.  It couldn’t be a lie.  …It could be a dodge.  Irene had said anytime; there was something else he didn’t want to tell me about.  Well, I would trust the truth and discard the rest for now.  I wanted to see Irene.  I was certain there was no one else who could tell me what I needed to know.

            And if Irene were at home, then I could probably find Nell nearby, wondering how long she was expected to wait and see if her target would move again before she could get out of the dreary, unseasonable weather and go home to await my arrival.  In that manner, going by the Lovelace home would take care of one loose end.  I hoped my lack of availability at the number I had specified would not offend the surgeon (with the best of luck, he wouldn’t have even called).  “I’ll see her first then.”

            “And second?” Lon asked.

            “You, of course.”

            He laughed, a sound that was tight and awkward and tinged with irony.  Most people have several different laughs.  This was not any of his most common ones.  …Something was happening, but without or within him, I could not say.  Some problems I could fix better than others.

            “Yes,” Lon agreed at last, “That sounds about right.  …Also, I’ve got some music I want to run by you.”  The last part sounded like Lon.  Natural.  It smoothed the wrinkles out of our creased circumstances.

            “I’ll be looking forward to it.”  There was no artifice in that.

            We concluded our conversation in our usual manner.

            Even the person one understands best in all the world can, from time to time, seem peculiar.  The matter of Lon was another problem that required my full attention.  And I would provide it- just not quite yet.

 

            “Giancarlo!”

            “Ya ha ha!” a chuckling guffaw issued from the gangster’s red, flushed face, “The way you burst out of the back, I practically thought we had a police raid on our hands!”

            “Out of the back room?” Lola teased, having appeared sometime during my solitary work session, “That’s the only door that room has.”

            “Yeah,” Giancarlo grumbled, “Well, he still gave me one heck of a start.”

            “I appreciate everything you’ve done on my behalf,” I gave a small bow, my hat already in hand (I was ready to put it back on when I left).  “However, it seems I have to go.”

            “Do you want me to call you a cab?”

            “I already took care of that from the back.  They should be around at any moment, so-” I paused without anything else of consequence to say.  I could hear the rain coming down on the roof.  If it kept up like this, even on and off, there were going to be flashfloods to the east of here.  Every few years there was trouble like that.

            “Oh, but there’s good news on your place,” he remembered.  He probably hadn’t wanted to interrupt me earlier.  “Three cops went in to talk with your neighbors and whoever, but they were all seen leaving about an hour ago.”

            “That’s good.  Thank you.”  I didn’t imbue the words with as much feeling as perhaps I should have, as, once again, my thoughts were running ahead of the moment.  I needed to be less transparent about that.  Whether or not they really deserved it, the person in front of me, whoever he or she might be, should at least _think_ he or she was receiving my undivided attention.

            “G’bye!” Lola waved as I slipped back into my coat (it was warm in the hideout).  After the heat, the drops of rain that struck my face before my hat and then the umbrella shielded it felt pleasant and refreshing.  Because of the clouds, it was already as dark as if the sun had gone down.

            The taxi driver I encountered next was familiar.  He was at the very beginning of his shift.  I had made use of his services many times during the later hours of the night.  He wasn’t an Ishvalan and he wasn’t a talker- at night, this was probably an important quality.  The rain rattled down along the roof of the cab and the windshield wipers swished erratically (they could’ve used a little tuning up).

            “Cops have been by that house a lot,” the driver said, his second sentence after “Where to?”

            “That’s where the murdered State Alchemist lived,” I explained.

            I like to describe the look I received in return as the, “You must be an undercover cop,” look.  I never tire of being given that wary, thoughtful appraisal.  If people would only ask, I would correct their imperfect conclusion.

            “Here you go,” he said soon enough.  The house was set a ways back from the street, leaving me with a long stroll up to the door.  I looked around, wondering about Nell.  She didn’t drive either (a parked car would have been the best place in this weather to settle down and wait).  Had she given up too long ago for us to meet?

            Across the street, a figure jumped up and waved at me.  It was Nell, looking unhappy, but not, ultimately, that much different from usual, on the porch of a darkened house.  The taxi would gone from sight before I was halfway to the shelter of the eaves over the doorstep if I didn’t take action.  “Could you wait a moment?” I asked the driver, before hurrying through the bracing downpour.

            “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Nell greeted me, awkward, but possibly pleased if it would get her indoors sooner.

            “You were lucky to find this spot,” I said, taking things in from her perspective.  You couldn’t see the front of the Lovelace residence from the porch because of a thick hedge, but that meant Nell was protected from the casual gaze of any prying eyes.  “Just let me know what you saw and I’ll take things over from here.”

            “I went by the police office first, since it was closer to the café and, luckily, I caught up with her there.  It was like someone had kicked over an anthill with the fallout from that poor policeman’s death.  Even when she came out onto the steps in front where I could actually watch her, she talked to one of the policeman for a long time.  Anyway, it was absolutely boring except for two things- being really scared she’d suddenly pull something crazy and I’d lose track of her and that she bought a train ticket.”

            “Even if the details seem inconsequential to you, they might mean something to me within the larger context of the case,” I pressed.

            “I don’t know where the ticket was to, but she also left off some luggage with the porter.  Enough that you could tell she’s going to be gone for a long time.  …Or that the trip is one-way.”

            Leaving town.  Well, that was one reason to want to be cleared of any suspicions or charges against you.  Even if one weren’t guilty, there was probably no surer way to cause the authorities to believe you were.  “So, what else did she do while you tagged along after her?  …I do sincerely apologize if all she did was talk to the police, buy the ticket, and come home, leaving you to sit out here this entire time.”

            “That was pretty much it, really,” Nell shrugged, “She watched trains go by at the station for a while.  She ate a late lunch- soup and a sandwich.  …She primps an awful lot.”

            “Did she talk much to anyone?”

            “I was sort of nervous about getting close enough to hear her except at the restaurant, but she seemed to enjoy talking to the waiter who served her.  To tell the truth,” a smile rippled out gracefully across Nell’s face, “The way she talked to the waiter kind of reminded me of you.”

            I must have looked a little sour at this, because Nell let out a snort of laughter.  “You’re both all business, I guess.  I mean, I figure she came home to finish getting ready for her trip or something.”

            But ‘all business’ wasn’t what Nell’d been getting at when she’d likened Irene to me.  …It was irrelevant.  I’d let it go.  “You don’t know what policeman she was speaking with?”

            “Actually, I do.  It’s that detective who kept coming by last summer- the one who doesn’t like you.”

            As expected.

            “That’s the other part I suppose you’ll want to hear about- when she finally walked away from him, she was smiling.  He didn’t seem too irritated to go either.  He even made sure she didn’t forget her white umbrella.”

            “Might she have been wearing a white coat?”

            “Not white, but tan, pale-ish.  Maybe if you weren’t paying close attention you might think it was white.”

            “I appreciate it.”

            And Nell appreciated the ready ride home.  I hoped the rain had covered for the lingering vehicle during our conversation, but, then again, if Irene had noticed me doing something suspicious, what could she really do about it at this point?

            I trudged up the long driveway and rapped on the door.

            "Ms. Lovelace?"  The house was silent for a long moment following my knock, though it was hard to be too exact about that with the rain beating down around me.  There wasn’t much wind at least so the rain played by the rules of gravity.

            She might not have heard me.  I listened harder.

            The click of her heels preceded the careful opening of the door.  "Hello, Mr. Kimblee.  I'm sorry for the delay.  I was on the telephone."

            "No harm done."  I was feeling the squeeze of police pressure and the lack of meaningful answers to the case, but I was not so pressed for time as to openly begrudge a lady her phone calls.  There was, no doubt, plenty of business yet to deal with regarding all aspects of her husband's passing.  …Not all of it equally legal, I imagined, but that would be handled soon enough.

            "So, tell me, how are you?  How is your investigation going?  I heard just this afternoon that Mr. Gorman's been cleared as a suspect by the police."  She paused in her passage into the parlor to lay her gentle hand on my arm.  "What do you think about that?"

            I smiled.  I idly thought how I would've preferred to feel the touch of her bare fingers on my hand.  There were those gloves again.  What was so great about gloves?  What might they be being used to hide?  "Personally, I'm inclined to agree.  I just can't see it."

            "Yeah?  So, what leads do you have now?"

            "In all honesty, if it were not for the manner of your husband's passing, I would be inclined to think it was a random killing."  What I had truly come to believe I couldn’t say without the proper setup and phrasing.  Irene Lovelace had hired _someone_ to finish off her husband.  But who?  A friend?  One of Dr. Lovelace's colleagues?  A random assassin?  ("Alchemist, be thou for the people."  It didn't go half as far as many trusted it to.)  And then, why?  An affair?  If there was one, she covered it well.  Dr. Lovelace's modest savings?  It didn't follow.  Hatred or boredom or disgust with a studious, middle-aged husband- despite what she had said, attempting to make a case for only mild (and possibly mutual) discontent, that was what I believed I was zeroing in on.  The personal life of Roger and Irene Lovelace.  The real, unvarnished truth.  To get at it, it seemed, would be to bite into the meat of the case.  It didn't need to be much.  One little grievance would suffice as the starting point.  The Bake Hill murders had been committed for less.

            “It’s not a common thing to happen and yet only involve one victim, is it?” she wondered.

            She was getting at something there.  She was playing with me.  “That’s true.  Most thrill killers, uncaught, would want to do it again.”

            “There hasn’t been anything else like- oh,” she let out a little gasp.  “Have you heard about that poor young policeman?  …It doesn’t seem like the sort of matter to escape you.”

            “I heard.”  It was strange, how all of the sudden, her tales took a turn for the painfully obvious.

            The sound of an approaching car rattled against the rhythm of the rain.

 

            “Tell me about your alchemy, Irene.”

 

            I could hear the car slowing down, drawing closer, but I was facing away from the window.  Whoever was out there provoked a small, calm reaction from Irene.  She probably knew the person.  Perhaps she was expecting them.  “And here you just took off your hat and coat,” she said, like it was such a pity.

            I stood up, turned to face the front window, and as I looked, I took in several details- the valise sitting on the floor by a cabinet, how empty the kitchen still seemed, a dishtowel dotted stains, similar to, but darker than, the ones that had marked the apron I’d borrowed.  She painted her arrays with that, whatever it was.

            There was a police car in the driveway.  The powerful headlights pierced the dark and rain, then switched off, but not before I had seen that only one man rode there.  A man who was missing his partner.

            “Oh, that terrible Harding,” Irene muttered.

            The color of those stains became familiar.  I’d seen that color before- in the Ishvalan District.  I ignored Harding’s inevitable approach.  “Where you do you like to wear your henna, Irene?”  I knew, but I had to see.  I had tried it before for the same reason that I was sure she was wearing it.  Temporary tattooing to test out arrays.  And, after all, I had never seen her bare palms.

            “He won’t believe it even if he sees it,” Irene smirked, finally responding to my queries, if only in a sideways sort of way.  “You and I are in this together.  I think the best you could manage at this point would be to take me down with you, Mr. Kimblee.  …And don’t you have a little too much to lose to take that road?”

            “Now,” she picked my coat up off the chair and pushed it into my arms, “Why don’t you go to the door and greet the nice officer.”  She had put something into one of my pockets, but Harding was knocking, leaving me without a chance to look.  Irene followed close behind me as I approached the door.  She meant it to look as though she were coming along with me to meet Harding, but I knew it was really to block my exit.  I couldn’t turn and flee some other way.

            I doubted that Harding hadn’t examined Irene’s hands at some point in this investigation and henna didn’t last forever, but it wouldn’t be easily removed so soon after the designs she’d worn were used to murder.  It had probably been fresh when she’d done the job on Roger.  The strange bruise Sam had taken note of on his arm was a spot where the ink on her hand had rubbed off on him.

            What Harding had seen hadn’t convinced him that she could be arrested yet and I doubted there was anything I could say that would make it convince him now.  Not because Harding was stupid.  Not because he was stubborn (he was, but not so much as all that).  Because the one making the argument would be _me_.

            “Good evening,” Irene spoke to him first.

            I was in a difficult position.  I tried to remain at least outwardly at ease.  "Were you looking for me, officer?"

            "A very nice young man at your apartment told me that I might find you here."

            "The more he knows about my schedule, the more of a liability he becomes," I mused, not really caring if Harding heard me.  "I love him anyway," I added as Harding's steely eyes fixed onto mine.

            "I can't seem to find a woman worth marrying," Harding answered, "I could use a housekeeper myself."

            Was he joking, I wondered?  Was this some attempt to make nice or play "good cop" with me?  "He's a musician, not a housekeeper," I corrected, for lack of a better response.  "We split the chores."

            “And you the music-lover,” Harding kept his cool, though I think the odd look in my eye did not go by completely unnoticed, “That must be nice.”

            “I’m impressed that you know that about me.”  He’d never seemed interested by any facts that didn’t pertain directly to a case at hand.

            “You don’t make a secret of it.”  He spoke the truth.  “I’m sure you’d rather not keep letting all this cold air into your house, Mrs. Lovelace.  I don’t have any further questions for you tonight.”

            “Well, if you say so,” she agreed, all sweetness and tranquility.  “And it’s been nice visiting with you, Mr. Kimblee,” she brought our encounter to an abrupt end, passing me my borrowed umbrella.  She closed the door and I could hear she locked it behind her.  I wasn’t going to make it back inside that house.  She knew it because she’d known that Harding would come here for me.

            Lon had given me up innocently, but he hadn’t needed to.  If Irene was willing to kill again to make the case better tailored to fit me, making a phone call to police headquarters wasn’t worth batting an eye over.

            The rain was loud.

            If I spent even a single night in a cell, I was never going to see Irene again.

            “Anyway, enough pleasantries…getting to the business of why I’m here…”   He turned unnecessarily to make more room for me to stand and share the space with him and tripped on the step.  Although he staggered, he did not fall, but his badge escaped from the pocket of his jacket and tumbled to the ground.

            The hand I had shot out to assist him traveled instead to retrieve this vital piece of his gear.  The case containing the badge had flipped open.  I took advantage of this opportunity to peruse his personal information.  It only took a second to take in something amusing.  So much for all the time Harding had spent playing his cards close to his chest.  "Harold _F._ Archer-Harding?" I chuckled curiously.

            Harding fixed his steely eyes on me, clearly continuing his no tolerance policy for playfulness on the job (and, I imagine, off the job too).  He held out his hand.  Something about his gesture reminded me of a particularly obstinate schoolteacher I'd faced in my youth.

            I brushed a bit of dirt off his combined badge and identification and, resisting the urge to toss them over, came and put them into his hand.  The sound of shifting metal somewhere on his person made me wonder, not for the first time, if part of his body had been replaced by automail.  It was becoming more common these days, a result of the increasing pace of warfare around our borders.  More wars, more bodies, more wounded.  People have a fascinating way of plugging the holes in a sinking ship one by one rather than re-tarring the entire thing at once.  "What's the "F." stand for, Harding?" I grinned.  What an unwieldy name that was.  What thoughtful parents he'd had.

            "What's the "J." stand for?" he turned my inquiry back at me.

            "It's Frank," I guessed, ignoring his (albeit flattering) interest in myself.  "You seem more like a Frank than a Harold."

            One sharp eyebrow curved curiously into something like a checkmark across his brow.  "How do you know that?" was what he wanted to ask me, but as quickly as his lips parted, he closed them again.  There was to be no frolicking during work hours (and certainly not what was most likely overtime), even of the merely verbal sort.  In any case, there was no way Harding could allow himself any measure of _liking_ toward me.  Again and again, when he was in charge of an investigation, he found some circumstance that made me an obstacle or some clue that made me a suspect.  I was beginning to think he had some vendetta against me.

            He kept up his severe look quite easily and I simply shrugged, figuring he would prefer some sort of response to the stoic gaze I had planned on providing.  "So, do you have any further business with me, Detective Harding, or can I be on my way with this neat little tidbit under my hat?"

            "Yes, that's right!"  I imagine Harding was not too pleased that I had sidetracked him so thoroughly, even for only two minutes.  From the outset I had known that he would not forget his purpose for long.  "Solf Kimblee, you're under investigation regarding the Lovelace murder case and the murder of Officer Bauer.  You need to come down to the station for questioning."

            "Come now, _Frank_...I may look like I have all evening, but I do have places to be," I ventured a turn toward the familiar.  There isn't one single way for me to turn up the charisma.  I choose my style based on what I know of the person I'm charming.  Generally, I just try to play the gentleman.  It's the role I love best, or perhaps my true face (though only a face- no man can fully describe his heart).

            "Nice try, Kimblee, but you're not going to weasel your way out of my grasp so easily this time."

            He was right.  I wasn't.  Of course, this was mainly because I saw it as a wiser time to be interrogated than to flee.  I didn’t have it in me to want to get it over with, although time was certainly going to become an issue.  If I brushed Harding off through some bit of trickery, he would only become further convinced that I was a viable suspect.  This was to prevent headaches later.

  1. My payment was temporary trouble with the police, if not something longer and worse.



            Static crackled over the police radio, the chirping and chattering of justice in action competing with the rain.  When we arrived at the station, Harding took his time letting me out.  He liked having me in his power, grabbing my upper arm to pull me along.  He had a strong grasp.  His right hand, at least, wasn't metal.

            I smiled at the other officers, enduring this mild indignity with grace.  I recognized most of them from previous visits to the precinct and they, undoubtedly, recognized me as well.  Part of the point of staying so calm in the station was to make Harding's diligence into fanaticism.  What was wrong with him, I wanted them to ask, that he would handle the private detective that way?

            "New lead on the Mad Bomber?" the stooped old secretary asked as Harding led me to the interrogation room.

            "Lovelace murder, Bauer murder" Harding answered, neat and concise.

            "Good afternoon, Horace," I chattered.  I innocently allowed my arm to droop, running the end of Lon's umbrella along the floorboards.  As I took my expected seat at the interrogation table, the umbrella stuck out at a sharp angle around the chair legs.  Harding caught it with his toes and stumbled against the table.  I kept my expression perfectly cool.  If I were under investigation, I _certainly_ wouldn't want to anger or humiliate an officer of the peace.

            I would keep the feelings I had building regarding Irene reserved for Irene alone.

            Harding cursed under his breath and sat down.  "Where were you on the evening of the tenth?"

            "At the shop until eight.  At Shephard's Electric, that is.  After that, I went home.  I stayed there the rest of the night."

            "Is there anyone who can back up that alibi?  Or are you going to expect me to trust your word?"

            "Shephard can't account for the late hours, but he'll tell you I was the last one in the shop.  There are a few people from the building who can vouch for my return to the building just after eight.  That I stayed in all night, I don't know."

            “And again, yesterday at noon?”

            “I was at home.  But I don't have any sound reason for you to believe that either.”  My brother’s testimony that we had been together wouldn’t count for much.

            "You're an alchemist, correct?"

            "Do you have to ask me that each time we meet like this for recording purposes?  Yes, I am."

            "Were you acquainted with the first victim- Major Roger Lovelace?"

"I'd heard his name.  I think I read it in the paper.  But we never met."

            "How accomplished an alchemist do you consider yourself, Mr. Kimblee?  Are you at all familiar with the tenets of medical alchemy?"

            "Medical alchemy is of no real interest to me.  I specialize in explosions."  Here, Harding twitched, reacting quite visibly to my remark.  I imagined it had as much to do with our past history as with the case at hand.  "I'm going to take the test for state certification in a week," I continued.  "I'm confident I'll pass.  My art, after all, is my life."

            Even now, that much hasn't changed.

            “Can I take that remark to mean that you’re proud of the work you’ve done recently?  The young officer that was killed this afternoon was ripped apart by an explosion that was most likely alchemic in nature- isn’t that more up your alley?  Isn’t that how you’ve operated before?”

            I smiled.  He had brought up the past and now I perversely desired to remind him of his past failure, knowing full well the blow it would strike against me.  I couldn't resist this flaw of mine.  Harding quirked an eyebrow up.  Was he waiting to see what I would say, or had he already guessed?  "That's right.  You can't ever forget, can you?  You let David Tanner walk free for what turned out to be two more murderous weeks because you were too busy obsessing over me."

            "I would've made that mistake with or without you, Solf Kimblee!" Harding insisted, bubbling over with inner fury.  He hated himself for the error of judgment he had made that hot day.  David Tanner had left police custody and murdered six more people while Harding had chased me down to a dead end in his bomber case.  ...The bomber hadn't killed anybody.  Is it any wonder I was impressed by this statement then?  It was as good as an admission of guilt.

            "You're a good man, Harding," I said, though a kind word from me was unlikely to mean much to him.  It was unfortunate for him to be weighed down by such guilt.  I had a feeling that, like all extreme emotions, it might be impairing his thinking process.  An investigator of any stripe needed to keep an open mind.

            "This isn't productive, Kimblee," he grumbled.  I detected a slight metallic sound as he clenched and unclenched his fists, pushed back his chair, and stood up.

            "Perhaps it will be in the end," I suggested.  I did not exactly want to cede my claim on Irene to this pompous policeman, but I, after all, could not make the arrest.  Harding might need this more than me.  …Assuming there would be any arrest.  I couldn’t say what would happen when I reached our final rendezvous point.  My allegiance was to myself, my personal sense of “justice,” not to the law.  "You haven't set Irene aside as a lead, have you?"

            "Even her hired hunting dog is turning on her?"

            Comments of this sort did nothing to endear him to me.  But I'm a gentleman and I was bound to be the bigger man than Harding- at least that far.  "Don't stop looking at Irene."

            "This is really very interesting, Kimblee, because, the thing is, Mrs. Lovelace has told me the exact same thing about you."

            Everything I had wondered about Irene Lovelace, every action Nell had reported to me, every bit of rumor or memory about here I had gathered from one source or another, came together into a picture solid as marble.  Irene had never been as interested in my actively doing something to clear her name as she had been in surreptitiously finding a way to set me up in her place.  It was a good game, Irene, very good indeed, but I had the easier part in it for all the merry chase you put me through.  Because, first, in the murder of Roger Lovelace, and, again, in the murder of Stephen Bauer, I was innocent and you were guilty.  ...Of course, that didn't mean I had her yet.  She had killed her husband and the policeman too.  But where the first set-up had been weakly constructed after the fact, the second one was solid gold.  Harding would feel the same as I did: one killer.  But it wasn’t going to be easy convincing him that killer wasn’t me.

            "That's where you've been getting this crazy idea?" I asked, figuring I would still do far more to advance my case by staying calm.  "If I did it, Mr. Harding, what was my motive?"

            "You tell me, Kimblee," he answered.  This once he seemed to regard me very sincerely.  "Why did you set off those explosions? Why do you do any of the things you do?  You see, I think you're the kind of person who doesn't need any reason at all.  Will you answer me that, Kimblee?  Are you?"

            "Everyone has their reasons," I told him bluntly.  He would not appreciate a lie and I did not care to feed him one.  "It's just the reasons themselves can vary so much from person to person.  You might not understand mine and I might not understand yours, but that doesn't make them empty.  If you fully believe in the choice you're made, then that's enough."

            Harding frowned.  I got the feeling I had let him down.  Should I apologize?  I wasn’t about to confess to crimes I hadn’t committed.  “Harding…” I said, trying to decide where to go with this so as to have some meaningful effect on him.

            “If it’s not relevant to any of these open cases, I don’t want to hear it.”  He shook his head.  “Wait here, Mr. Kimblee,” he regained some semblance of professionalism, altering his way of referring to me again.  “I have to pick up the case files off my desk.  I want to go through them with you, one point at a time.  We’ll get to the bottom of this Lovelace nonsense if it takes us all night.”

            I didn’t have all night, but he could hold me if he wanted to.  If Harding wouldn’t believe me about Irene, I was going to have to play nice.  It was time to determine the fastest way to escape the interrogation room.  “However you’d like to handle it, officer,” I tried for ‘serene,’ “It’s your case.”

            “Just a moment then.”  He rose and left me.  I was alone at the table, but not unguarded.  I could see the cap-topped profile of an officer I didn’t know.  He looked barely older than my brother.

            It was interesting what ways Harding would and wouldn’t trust me.  I spared a moment I didn’t have to think of him.  Harding and I were, for once, I realized, exactly the same.  We had been duped by an exceedingly clever woman.  I cannot speak for Harding, but I can explain part of why, despite my suspicions, I was led so far astray.  It's not as if I ever believed in the idea of the innate goodness of people, but I was slow to open up to the possibility that Irene Lovelace was wearing a mask along with that bright red lipstick- that she was a heretic navigating this society, just like me.

            What did you think of yourself, Irene?  What did you think about this world?  I would've liked to ask her these things and receive an honest answer.  I would've preferred to be her ally.  I might have played your game, Irene, if only you had asked- or could you not see through my façade either, to know that I was much like you?

            Of course, there was a massive problem at that juncture.  I was in police custody.  For all his suspicions, Detective Harding was holding me, not Irene Lovelace.  How could I possibly convince him to think otherwise?

            I probably couldn’t.  Precious seconds were ticking away as I waited in the interrogation room.  I got up and tapped on the door.  It was opened by the young officer.  "How much longer will Detective Harding be?" I asked, playing up my agitation, "I remembered something important.  I really need to talk to him."

            This put the unfamiliar officer on edge.  Maybe I, the dangerous suspect, was ready to finally confess.  In that case, it would be bad to make me wait long- I could be fickle and change my mind about telling.  "I'll go take a peek," the unsuspecting young fellow decided, "Just be patient a while longer, Mr. Kimblee."

            I thanked him, closed the door, and made as if to sit back down.  He moved away, leaving the door locked, but unguarded.  I waited, waited, trying to gauge the time it would take for him to move far enough away- and then I made my move.  A simple transmutation could quietly break the lock.  I closed it, slipping along through the halls, trying to avoid officers the best I could without giving the impression I was purposely keeping out of sight.  It was easy enough going as the place was slightly understaffed and I had not actually been officially arrested- couldn’t Harding have arrested me yet?  He was as lacking in hard evidence as I was if that were the case.  As long as I didn't run into Harding, I was confident I would make a clean getaway.

            "Tiring questioning, Mr. Kimblee?" the familiar older officer, Horace, at the front desk asked.

            "Yes, and I have miles to go before I sleep," I teased enigmatically.  There was no evidence I could bring to convict Irene but her own words from her own mouth.  All I could do was confront her.  She’d confess and I’d bring her in.  …Or I would handle the blow to my pride in a manner of my own making.

            I left the police office.  The rain had tapered off while I was inside.  I had no time to waste in getting out of sight.  If Irene would not give herself up, I would have a lot of explaining to do to Harding later.  Even a success would not be greeted that happily.

            I looked at her message again, focusing on the drawing and it’s “meet me here.”  It wasn’t the train station we would meet at, but some more obscure location halfway between there and her home.  Something might happen, but I preferred as much as she did that there’d be no one else there to see it.  From the moment I’d first analyzed the note, it had stood out to me as an indication of how I could expect our concluding meeting might play out, but it wasn’t definitive.  The ending was up to Irene.

            How would things proceed between us, now that both Irene and I saw the other for what we truly were?

            The gray sky started leaking again- it was more an inconvenience than anything, but I seemed to have such luck that the rain would only stop while I was inside.  The black umbrella was again my friend.  I held it low and close to the top of my fedora, hoping it would provide extra camouflage against the officers who were, inevitably, seconds away from coming after me.

            And another friend was soon at hand.  A car pulled up nearby in a slow, almost-sinister manner.  But this wasn’t some gangster film.  “Mr. Kimblee?” Qarash grinned, hoping to put the recent chill in our interactions behind him, “Going my way?”

            “You’re out late,” I noted, feeling high strung enough to be bothered by even this.

            “I was out having dinner with a friend, but he’s home now.  And, well, when I’m driving alone, I’m never really off the clock.”

            “I’m glad your evening has been more pleasant than mine.”  My nerves were high.  I wouldn’t let him take me all the way, but the corner closest to Shephard Electric was close enough and lacking in suspicion.  It was interesting that Irene’s in-between location in the industrial district could be considered to be within my area.  “If you ever want any,” Qarash ventured carefully, “I can get you a discount on flowers.”

            “I might,” I answered.  I hadn’t been expecting that.  Did he offer to make peace or to stand his ground?  “…I might need them for apologizing to my brother,” I went a step further.  When I was ready to put myself to the task, Lon would be easily appeased (what came after this forgiveness was what would be difficult).  The daisies I had wanted would come cheaper than I’d expected.  I would let Qarash take my words as he wanted.  My own departure for Central loomed on the calendar.  I was confident enough that things would be solved that night to start once again planning my exit from the grimy South City scene.  “I’ll see you around, Qarash.”

            “Right, Mr. Kimblee.”

            I made as if to enter the electrician’s shop, slipping into the shadow of the doorway until he was out of sight.  It was unfortunate that I behaved in such a mystifying manner.  The situation must have been getting to me more than I would admit at the time.  Solo once more, I headed out into the drizzle.

            The marked location was the Hess Soap Manufacturing Plant, smack in the heart of the industrial district.  The doors at the front of the factory were slightly ajar.  I passed between them, unaware as yet that I was being watched not only from the front as I expected, but also from behind.  I did not see the old gray coat that tailed me or the dark fedora that shrouded a pair of yearning eyes.  What did they hope to see in their spying?  There was to be nothing here but pain.

            "Did you come here to clean up your act, Mr. Kimblee?  Hee hee hee hee," Irene's pretty voice echoed around the quiet factory.  The rain began to quicken to a downpour.

            I looked around slowly, trying to maintain a cool facade.  Irene wasn't anywhere in my immediate area on the ground floor.  She was nearer to something hollow, I imagined, because of the amplification.

            "Did you miss me?" she laughed again.

            This was beginning to grow tiresome.  It would be impolitic to bring the entire building down, but that didn't stop me from imagining it, if only for a split second.  The click-clack of heels focused my vision upward.  There she was- the puppet master hidden in the shadows, gazing down on me.  If I was anything, I was no one's puppet.  An irrational spark flickered to life.

            "You set me up!" I said sharply.  "You wanted Harding to take me in for your crime!"  I didn't like this one bit.  Irene's smug expression only made it worse.  I couldn’t stand to have her up there looking down on me.  There was a flame in my chest and it flared like a wildfire.  “Not just Roger.  You did in the policeman to frame me.”

            "Actually, I'm impressed."  Irene stalked along the catwalk, swaying sensuously on her heels.  Her treachery did little to negate her beauty.  "How is it that you convinced Officer Harding to release you so quickly?  I hadn't honestly expected to see you again, Mr. Kimblee.  By the time you were cleared- assuming you weren't actually convicted in my place- I planned on being long gone.  I'm a Central City girl myself.  This place has never been quite up to my standards."

            "And what makes Central so fine?" I asked, tempering my anger into something strong and metallic- a weapon to pierce the bosom of that snake.  I grasped the railing and set my foot on the first step leading up to the catwalk.  The neglected step cringed, creaking, under my weight.  In a looser situation, I would've skipped ahead to the next one before such tension had set in, but Irene's eyes were on my every movement and I could not push her into acting with unnecessary haste.

            "You wouldn't know anything about Central, country boy," Irene tossed her head and laughed.  Her green eyes cut me like knives, but her teeth were the real cutlery.  She grinned and I reflected the same expression back.  I inherited from my stern, sly father a friendly set of gleaming teeth.  It's in my eyes, not my teeth- that quality that warns you away.  For Irene, I think it was the opposite.

            "I bet you learned how to dress from five year old fashion magazines, country boy, and all your clothes came from the second-hand store."

            I hated her for the first time at that moment.  I hated her for knowing exactly what to say.  "I learned how to dress from the movies.  And my clothes are tailored specially, straight from material from the family textile mill," I growled, stepping toward her, one foot at a time, no more hesitation slowing my gait.  "I'm sorry that you can't properly appreciate the care I've put into I'm attire.”  In a way, I was still playing into her hands,  “...I'm getting tired of this game."

            "Good, because I'm getting tired of your big mouth," Irene pulled a pistol from inside her coat and cocked it.  "You were pretty cute, Kimblee, when you managed to shut your trap.  Sorry I haven't the time to tango anymore.  Your brother tells me you're actually quite the dancer."

            Whatever I was expecting to hear next, that was _not_ it.  My mind flashed back to the first meeting with Irene- the unorthodox introduction at my apartment.  She hadn't had much time to talk to Lon.  Not enough time to learn that.  She was bluffing.  She was lying.  I raced through the possibilities.  ...She had met him again.

            "See?" Irene called out cheerfully, "I told you it might be worth your time to come.  The Mad Bomber's far too clever to be held back by the police, just like you'd expect."

            "I don't know what you're talking about," I politely sidestepped the accusation.  "There's nothing suspicious about an innocent man being released from custody."

            "Now Kimblee, let's both be honest for once, why not?  You show your cards and I'll show mine."

            Irene was putting on an awfully big show.  When I felt I could, I advanced up toward the catwalk.  “Why did you tell me the story about the young alchemist friend if you were going to use it against me?”

            “You were seeing through things just a bit too fast.  Even if it was like tossing a tissue over your eyes, it was still a distraction.

            “I killed Roger, just like you thought.  And I killed that young policeman too, to turn the spotlight of the law even brighter onto you.  ...Now, if you go down here, I'll claim you tried to frame me and that you confessed to everything and that will be that.”

            “One last thing,” I wanted to know, “The work Roger didn’t respect.  It was yours.”

            “Among others.”  It could see that it stung.  “Among other issues.  I had certain interests and ideas about how we might work together and use our alchemy.  He was just never willing to see things my way.”  She seemed to prickle at the memory of it, but forced herself to push those feelings away.  “Roger used his alchemy to help people, but our lovely government might have liked him a bit more if he’d been willing to branch out.”

            “So," she smiled, softer, sensual, and pointed her gun my way, "Are you the Mad Bomber, like Harding thinks you are?"

            "Yes," I relented, confirming her suspicions, "I am."  When I was finished that day, whatever the outcome, I was certain she would be incapable of convincing anyone likewise, making it a fairly empty admission.

            "Did you hear that loud and clear, Lon?" Irene called down among the stacks of shipping crates.

            Lon took off the dark fedora he was wearing as camouflage and shuffled out a little, dragging my white umbrella behind him.  "Solf," his voice quivered.

            "What a charming witness we have to our game now, Kimblee," Irene expressed her glee at managing this small one-up over this private detective.  "I suppose things will fall apart for you soon enough, whether you take me in or I take you out.  Dear Lon's not the type who can keep all this to himself is he?"

            "We are on the same page," I declared, though it was evident there existed a schism between us.

            "Well, that's fine and dandy, because at this point, the end I'm hoping for most is the one where I kill you and then your brother because he's no longer necessary as a witness against you."  She pointed her pistol down at Lon for nothing more than the sheer fun of it.  I wouldn't allow any more flippant moves.  I sent the force of a small explosion along the railing to burst underneath her hand, singeing her glove and sending the gun flying out of her grasp into the tangle of machinery below.  "What a tender touch, Bomber," she squeezed her injured fingers close, covering them with her unhurt hand.

            "If I capture you, a killer, and bring you in, it's your word against mine," I announced, advancing up on her again, “Mine and my brother’s.”  And why would they believe him?  …Because why not believe him if at the same time he reported on Irene’s activities, he implicated me in the less-than-legal activities I had just confessed to?

            Out of the corner of my eye I peeked down at Lon.  He had shed the gray coat for greater mobility and skirted the edge of the industrial-size containers, moving closer to my location.  What did he intend to do?  Irene removed her gloves and threw them away, backing into the shadows.  With Irene as my priority, I didn't exactly have the time to decipher his every movement.  I willed Lon not to do anything stupid.

            Irene's henna-painted hands were eerie in the dark, lit by the mysterious movement of energy between them.  I could feel the metal of the catwalk bending under my next step, the bonds between the atoms weakening.  That was what Irene did- she _dissolved_ things.  Each step forward from here out would be a gamble.

            I knew Irene had no intention of going down with me, just as she was sure I was unwilling to go down with her.  She was betting I valued my life too much to blow up any part of the catwalk.  She was also lighter than me, so that advantage hewed tighter to the realm of fact.

            A rush of rain started a noisy march on the roof.  I inched forward, testing the strength of the metal, shifting my weight gradually.  I could see that Irene had nearly reached the far end of the walkway.  From her current position there were only two ways to go- forward, back toward me, or up and out the window onto the factory's roof.  Would she move to go outside?  She wasn't quite cornered yet, but I had a feeling Irene, who liked to maintain appearances as much as I did, would try and end it here.  After she killed me, she could take my umbrella or Lon's and drive away from here.  Our bodies would be left for the factory's workers to find come the next workday morning.  South City would be none the wiser to her crime.  Knowing Harding, even my untimely death wouldn’t instantly absolve me of the other murders.

            The metal might not hold.  Below us, a vat of lye stood silent where during business hours it would gently simmer.

            "Stop, both of you!" Lon shouted.  He'd picked up Irene's gun (he had a keen eye to find it) and was pointing it up toward us.  "Come down and turn yourselves in to the police and no one has to get hurt!"  Could Irene see, as I could, that he was trembling?  Whenever, however Irene had managed things to meet with Lon again, I held the advantage with him; he was my brother.  I'd known him from the day he was born.  Only I knew that he'd never fired a gun.

            I took a step back onto stronger metal.  "Please, stop!" Lon did not command, but begged.  This meek soul could not follow me to Central, and certainly not to Ishval as he had everywhere else.  I know Lon would not (could not) shoot me.  Could he live without me?  What was the alternative?

            And in that split second as Irene came to the same realization I had started with- Lon would not shoot- our eyes met.  She dashed toward me, palms together, glowing, then apart, stretching out to grab me- form an acid to eat away at my flesh or turn my organs to mush within me just as she had done to Roger.  I turned my explosion less directly on Irene than to the panel below her- I couldn’t help but cringe away from her smudged and dangerous hands.  I slipped and struggled to find a handhold.  Irene's earlier handiwork was effective.  The blast seared her vaguely marked palms as the walkway broke apart, throwing her down into the lye mixture below.

            Her red dress was torn and tattered along the bottom.  It fluttered around her as she fell.  I thought of a rose with half the petals ripped away.  It only took a short second.

            The gun dropped from Lon's hands, falling to the ground with a clink.  I kept my eyes on where Irene had fallen, waiting to see if she would rise from the material.

            Did I want to see her rise?  What kind of ending was I interested in, anyway?

            It wasn't straight lye, so the odds were better it would burn well.  If there were fat remaining, that would help.  One spark for combustion was all it took.  The vat filled with a roar and then was quiet.  I listened to the strong silence.  Even the rain was done.

            I turned around.  I was done with Irene Lovelace.  It was time to clean myself up.  To go home.  Lon was sitting on the bottom step of the stairway to the catwalk, knees slightly spread and arms across them.  "Come on," I stopped three steps above him, "Let's go home."  I was tired.  The energy I had brought with me into the initial stages of this case had all been drained away.  I wanted to change my clothes and drink some tea and go to bed early.  I’d deal with the police when I was forced to.

            Lon was not immediately obliging.  He sighed and stood, facing me rather than clearing the way down.  "I can't believe you..." he struggled to find the words to express this compelling emotion.  "Solf, you're the Mad Bomber.  And not just that..."

            He had never before summoned the nerve to say it.  "You never had even an inkling?"  I kept calm and smiled at him without revealing my teeth.  "It's been too long a day for concerning yourself with that, hasn't it?" I urged.  I took one step down, coming closer, but still looking down on my younger brother.  I stretched my hand out to touch him, to banish his fears.

            "When we go home," he agreed with my initial intent, "When we..."  His throat tightened as tears welled over and ran down his face, "I will call the police, Solf.  And I'll tell them about Irene- you won’t have to worry about taking the blame for her actions- I’ll say everything that happened.  But also, I will tell them everything about you."

            I saw it then: the end of everything.  I should have known (I suppose I had).  I would be going away.  My brother might send me off, but how would he live with it?  He was shaking at the mere thought.  I held out my arms: Come now, it’s been a very long day, you aren’t thinking clearly, let your big brother handle everything and it will all turn out fine.

            The sudden interruption of another scrap of severed metal falling to the factory floor caused me to hesitate.  My fingers still found their way, terribly, tenderly to lie just over Lon's heart.  He recoiled from the impact, but, ready, I caught him, dropping to my knee as I shielded him from smashing into the ground.  His pallor increased in his shock and in comparison to the deep red stain spreading rapidly from over his heart despite the pressure I applied to the wound.  My hand still trembled.  He had never given voice to such thoughts before for all the times he had hesitated over my choices; I knew he was deadly serious.  His gaze focused long enough for him to look into my eyes.  It was a soft look.  He was thinking exactly what I was thinking.

            Lon's eyes closed.  I looked around, considering the best next step.  There was a telephone behind the glass of a side office.  I tried the door- it was locked.  I generated a small blast to shatter the glass, climbed through the pulverized mess, and called the hospital to report an accident at the nearest cross streets and request assistance.  I went back to check on my brother and to take him out of the strange setting of the factory to the clearing sky of the street, leaving our umbrellas behind on the floor.  Outside, I could see the moon.

            I was impressed with how swiftly the ambulance met us.  Lon was still breathing.

            I informed the medics of my blood type: O negative, the universal donor.  The distance blurred by as I kept my eyes on Lon.  Why had he put me in such a position, I wondered.  What would have become of him if he hadn't?

            Giving blood, emergency surgery, filling out papers...  Everything at the hospital moved at the strange speed of a dream.  I forgot for a time what a disaster I must have looked.  I was sitting in a white room.

            I pulled out my handkerchief.  It had stayed clean.  I began an offhanded effort of wiping off my face.  I had to look an absolute mess, scraped and bloody, streaked with factory soot and the salt of sweat.

            I leaned closer to look at my brother.  Was he still breathing?

            The door opened behind me.  "Mr. Kimblee?" inquired a familiar voice.  Detective Harding with the South City Police Department.  I didn't turn to face him.  There were more pressing matters on my mind.  Considering my situation, who would care to say otherwise?  "Ah, it is you."  Even without looking, even without saying anything, I had somehow given myself away.  In any case, it didn't matter.  I hadn't been trying to hide.

            "They stopped Irene’s bags at the train station.  I searched them myself.  She had some interesting notes- we’ll have to have an alchemist examine them, but they’re another strike against her.”

            I shook my head.  That didn’t sound like nearly enough evidence to convince Harding.  What was there to be gained by looking at him?  I kept my eyes on my brother, the unknowing center of this miniature universe.

            "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"  I could hear him advancing on me.  I gauged the closing distance from the soft tapping of his dark dress shoes.

            So that was that.  One investigation was over.  Another investigation began.


End file.
